


The Knife Ridge Scrolls

by Mangaluva



Series: The Keyleeverse [6]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Background warfare, Casual deaths of wild Pokemon, Child abuse and abandonment, Family deaths, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Onna-bugeisha, Pokemon as food, Theft, Trauma, Violence, child deaths, first-person pov, friendly sex workers, historical fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangaluva/pseuds/Mangaluva
Summary: For centuries, the Knife Ridge Scrolls have been an untranslatable mystery of history, baffling historians across Johto. Then, one day, one of the country's most pre-eminent historians gets a very strange email...(Gold Giftlocke turned historical fiction, framed as translating an ancient text. Set in the history of my nuzlocke series, but it is not necessary to have read any of the other fics in the series to understand this one. Posts will be infrequent but can be seen slightly more frequently in smaller chunks on the tumblr sayleeofkanto.)





	1. Fragments 1a-1g

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is something completely different and pretty fun to write. I want to give a shout-out to Songwithnosoul for commenting extensively on every single fragment as it was originally posted on Tumblr. YOU ARE THE MOST AWESOME READER THERE HAS EVER BEEN <3
> 
> Pokemon--0  
> Deaths--0

_ To: ereiton@goldenrodu.fa _

_ Subject: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Professor, _

 

_ I count myself extremely lucky to have gotten the chance to speak with you during your exhibition at the Pewter Museum and learn of your plans. Seeking out historical artefacts from museums and universities in Kanto that were lost during the war is a vital task that will be key to restoring Kanto’s culture, and who better to do it than a man such as yourself, seemingly an expert in every time period? _

 

_ Still, I know that your particular area of interest is the Fairlands prior to the rise of the Dragon Empire, and it is for this reason that I am emailing you now. I do not need to tell you what the Knife Ridge Scrolls are, one of the greatest mysteries of Johton history. You yourself have written extensively on known pre-Fairlan languages and how the scrolls are written in none of them, despite being written in Early Fairlan phonetic characters.  _

 

_ This will sound absurd, Professor, but I have learned to read them. _

 

_ I cannot yet tell you how I have come to learn the language in which they are written. I know that this is a lot to ask of a man such as yourself, who loves a good mystery, but I must ask you not to ask me how it is that I can read these scrolls. I can only hope that you can trust me that what I have enclosed is indeed a faithful translation of the first of the Knife Ridge Scrolls. _

 

_ I would like your opinion on their contents as an expert in this period of history. They do not tell us a great deal about the identity of their author--or at least, they do not tell me a great deal. It is my hope that you can see things in this tale that I cannot. I intend to continue to translate the Scrolls in their entirety, and I hope you will be interested in what they contain. Stories of this type are extremely rare, and from this period of history they are completely nonexistent. _

 

_ Thank you for your time, and I hope that your search is going well. _

 

_ Sincerely, _

 

_ Mortimer Minaki _

 

~~~~~~~

 

Most people would not have dared to take Fang. Most people would not dare to look at him. I think this is why I succeeded. 

It is a wonder to me now to think of how small he was when I first saw him. Even though he was small, it was obvious that he was different from the Pidgey and Hoothoot and Sentret that ran wild in the forests of the foothills. He had long fangs, and the Pokemon that he was playing with could make fire from its very back. The third looked gentle and pretty, with a big leaf on its head. It was clearly the pet of a rich lady, the other two the battle Pokemon of generals, or they would be one day, for now the guards of this pretty little pet. That was what I thought at the time.

Had I still known my place I would have run away when I saw them, in case the war-king who owned them saw me looking and had me beaten for it. But then again, had I still known my place, I would not have been in that fort at all, let alone looking at a war-king’s Pokemon. Knowing that they belonged to a war-king, and that it was probably the one with banners of red and black, was why I wanted to take one. That morning I had failed to get out of the way of his palanquin fast enough, and for that his soldiers had beaten me and thrown me to the side of the road. Such a beating, and being thrown into the snow in the dead of winter, had killed my mother. That was why I followed them to the farm-forts east of the Cheri forest. That was why I decided to steal his Pokemon.

I did not know it would be Fang at first. They were alone in the flower garden and it was only when they saw me that I thought that one could cry out and alert the fort that I was there. But they did not cry out, only watched me as I walked slowly closer. Fang was the one who was brave and walked up to me, smelling me with his big nose. I learned another fear then, that he would bite me with his huge jaws, take away an arm or a leg or my life. But instead he smiled at me and licked my hand. I know now that he was only a baby and had not learned to be a war Pokemon yet or else he surely would have taken my arm. At the time I thought it was a sign from the gods, who the war-kings said decided who Pokemon should obey. Now I think this was a lie to make people think that the war-kings ruled because the gods favoured them, not because they were simply crueller than most people. 

I picked up Fang and it was then that I heard a shout. It was in the language of the war-kings, which I did not understand at the time, but I did not need to understand the words to know that if there was shouting in that language, I was in trouble. I put Fang into the front of my clothes as I ran so that I had both hands free to climb back over the wall. Now that I know about the gods, I know that I was very lucky in many ways. I was lucky that Fang was a friendly baby who did not bite my neck or chest. I was lucky that the farmer who lived in that fort and owned all of the farms around had taken everybody to greet the war-king, so that there was nobody to see me get in and nobody to catch me as I ran away. But I had Fang, and I had the favour of the gods. That was what I thought at the time.

 

~~~~~

 

I had not seen the red and black banners before. At the time I did not think about it. I knew Lord Hayato’s banner of blue with a white wing. The soldiers who came for taxes every year wore them. But then the battlefields got closer and closer to our fields and I saw many banners and colours that I had never seen before. I cannot remember which battle burned our village or which colours were fighting it. All I remember from that day is fire. 

I have learned now that the red shape on the black means the stars, but when I stole Fang it meant trouble. It took a long time to lose the red-and-black soldiers in the forest, holding Fang close all the way. I think he fell asleep in my arms. I feel sad now to remember that he was only a baby and that it was because of me that he started to fight. But then again, I think that is how everybody grows up. To lose the soldiers we had to go deep enough into the forest that there were many wild Pokemon. When I was first attacked in the dark by many Hoothoot, Fang came to defend me. He scratched with his little claws and when he got angry he was truly frightening, but before long I was not afraid of him because he never hurt me. When he won fights we had meat to eat, and I think I cried the first time because I had not eaten meat in so long. Maybe I cried because I had not eaten until my belly was full in so long, not since I had had a home. 

I only fought a person once before I found my way to the Cheri forest and it was not a soldier, but the war-king himself. 

I was very surprised to see him properly outside of the palanquin. I thought that war-kings were all big men with bushy beards and strong women with scarred faces. This one was older than me but probably still a boy. His long hair was tied up like a man’s but he had no beard. If it had not been for the hair I would have thought him a noble lady, especially since he was holding the pretty green Pokemon that I thought was a pet. When he saw me, and shouted a command, and the pretty green Pokemon tackled me and knocked me into the dirt, I realized that I was wrong. This was a war-Pokemon too.

But Fang protected me, even against his friend. The war-king looked very angry to see this. He yelled a lot of things that I did not understand, but were probably supposed to frighten me just because a war-king was saying them. But I was not afraid of him when Fang was protecting me, for neither the little green Pokemon nor the war-king could defeat his rage. Both were bleeding in the dirt by the time the war-king’s soldiers found us. I was not afraid, but nor was I a fool. I grabbed Fang, who was so angry that he wanted to fight everything, and I ran, disappearing into the Cheri forests. I had seen them in spring, when there were pink petals for miles that turned into big, ripe fruit, but now it was the dead of winter and nobody was caring for the bare trees. Everyone was sleeping, waiting for spring, and there were miles of empty, identical trees for me to lose them in.

I did not want to hide in the forests forever. I decided to go back to Fort Kikyou. 

 

~~~~~

 

Everything that I know now about tracking, about finding my way in the wilderness with no paths to follow, I learned by necessity. That necessity began when I stole Fang, and I was too afraid to follow the road to Fort Kikyou for fear of seeing the red-and-black war-king. I know now that his name then was Kamon, but I did not know who he was at the time, only that I hated him and I was afraid of him. 

I felt sure that I would not see him in Fort Kikyou, that he was no friend of Lord Hayato, though I cannot remember why I was so sure of that. But first I had to get to Fort Kikyou, and without the road to follow I was soon lost in the forests north of the cheri groves. I knew that I had to go north-west from there, so at sunrise I would face away from the sun and walk and try to stay in a straight line. Fang walked at my side, fighting fiercely if we came under attack but otherwise happy to scurry around, smelling things and sometimes snapping sticks in his jaws.

Fang was the one who found the forester.

The man had been very old. He was lying on a mat in his hut, right next to the cold embers of a long-dead fire. He looked like he had just gone to sleep and not woken up. I envied him. His arms were wrapped around a big, beautiful stone, white with painted patterns of red and blue. At least, that was what I thought it was at the time. When I picked it up, I was surprised to feel that it was warm. I hugged it close, grateful for the extra warmth in the biting winter, and whispered a thank-you to the old man’s spirit, in case it was nearby and would be angry at me for stealing. I had made enough living people angry–I did not need the anger of a dead man chasing me as well. 

I was going to leave the old man there, but I stopped. I had seen so many bodies by the sides of the road or on the leftovers of battlefields and had long learned to forget about them, to leave them be. At home, we had burned the bodies of those who died to free their spirits, but now it seemed that there were so many bodies that if anybody stopped to burn them all, they would have no time to eat or sleep. But I had time, and I had taken something from this old man, even if he no longer needed it. At least I could free his spirit. 

It took time to start a fire, but when I did it caught quickly, turning the hut into an inferno in almost no time at all. I stayed as close as I dared–I did not want to waste the warmth, but the smoke burned my throat and lungs, so soon I left, going back into the forest with the warm rock clutched in my arms. Fang loved to smell it, and was happy to share his space in my arms when we found a safe tree to sleep in that night. Of course, he knew what it was. He loved it long before I realized that it was a thing to be loved. 

It was a great relief that it took me only another day to be able to look up and see Fort Kikyou rising on the hill above me. 

 

~~~~~

 

Of course, I had been to Fort Kikyou before. When I was a child, it was a distant, magical place that my father and the other fathers went to once a year. After harvest and taxes and making our winter stocks, they would take any extra we had to sell at the markets in Fort Kikyou. They would go away for a few days and return with new clothes, unusual foods, maybe a new toy or two, and blessings for every home from the Bellsprout Shrine. Once in a while, one of the monks would pass through to talk to us about good and evil and the many gods. The stories were so vivid and colourful and we children would tell them to each other over and over, making them more fantastic with every retelling. I did not really believe in the gods–I do not think anybody did, not really. I had grown up learning to pray over my food, to pray in the evening, to pray over the dead, to pray over the newborn, to pray over the seeds and the harvest. Of course it was unthinkable to not do these things--to not do so would be to earn the displeasure of the gods! Yet none of us ever truly expected to see, with our own eyes, an actual god. They were real and not real, and to the children they were fun stories, that was all. That was what I thought at the time. Now I know that the gods are not stories, nor are they fun.

I knew none of that when I first arrived in Fort Kikyou. My mother had said that that was where we were going to go. We no longer had our farm, but in a place like Fort Kikyou, there had to be work of some sort, a way to earn a living. After my mother was killed, I kept following the road to Fort Kikyou, for lack of anything better to do. I think I expected at any minute to be beaten down again and killed like she was. When I actually saw the fort for the first time, it was like a dream, that I was really, truly, finally in the place I had so often dreamed of. For a little while, looking at the bustling market, the mighty fort, all the  _ people _ , I forgot my cold and hunger and loneliness. There were several hundred people in Fort Kikyou, which was more people than I had thought existed in the  _ world _ .

The dream wore thin. I could not find work. Ours was not the only village to be destroyed in the wars, and my mother and I were not the only ones to think of going to Fort Kikyou to start over. Nobody needed yet another pair of hands–the streets were already full of beggars. I had no money to buy food and when, in my desperation and hunger, I tried to steal some, I was too slow and weak to succeed and was beaten by the shopkeeper so badly that I nearly died. If not for the kindness and care of the Bellsprout monks, who treated the injuries and sicknesses of all for free regardless of class, I think I would have. They gave out a little bread every day to every beggar who came by, but it was not enough. 

Even the sight of the Great Bellsprout soon started to lose its awe. I had seen Bellsprout on the way to Fort Kikyou, but none like this one, as tall as a house. I think I could have fit inside of its big, round mouth. I never saw it eat anybody, though, or do anything at all. It looked like it was sleeping. The monks said that it was meditating, that it had rooted itself to that spot a hundred years ago, and when it finished its meditation it would understand everything. They meditated with it in shifts, sitting still and silent for hours at a time. I was young, and such things bored me. I think it would be peaceful to visit now, but of course I cannot.

It was Reiko who taught me to steal. I met her through Sumiko, a girl from my village who was a few years older than me, who I had thought dead. I saw her praying to the Great Bellsprout one day with some other women and I cried to see her, so happy was I to see somebody else from my village alive. She cried too, hugging me tightly until she was told that she had to leave for work. I begged her to get work for me, but she told me that I was not old enough to work where she did, and that maybe I could find work in Lord Hayato’s army–they always needed servants to care for the soldiers. 

I would rather die than work for any soldier, and told her so. The other women laughed. Toki, who was in charge, said that because I was funny and a friend of Sumiko I could come back and get a little of their food, but that I had to leave before their customers arrived. I soon learned that they all worked at a pleasure house for men with no wives–or men with wives, sometimes. These were the ones who Reiko taught me to steal from. There was no work for me at the pleasure house, but they sometimes gave me food if they had some to spare, and Sumiko sometimes snuck me in to sleep in the storeroom on cold nights while she was working. Reiko had trouble sleeping in the morning and so one morning she caught me when I was trying to sneak out while the other women were asleep. She was not angry, though, but rather happy to have somebody to talk to and play games with before the other women woke up. Most people in Fort Kikyou stayed away from the pleasure house unless they were customers and were not interested in talking to the women who worked there–especially not Momoko, who had been a man once and still needed to shave her face before applying her makeup, but was also big and strong enough to throw out any customer who got too mean. But because people stayed away, the women did and said as they liked. Toki once said that she could not give me work because either I would have no customers, because I was so young, or I would get rich from war-kings because only they were rich and powerful enough to be so ill, and then I would buy the whole house out from under her. They made jokes about war-kings and monks and priests, the kind of jokes I had never before heard anybody dare tell, but nobody ever listened to them so they could make all the jokes they wanted. They had no place but at the bottom of society, nor did beggars like myself, but it was there that I learned the power of stepping outside of society, of not caring, of being free. And of course, as I keep saying before I become distracted, I learned to steal. I apologize for my distractions. I lived in Fort Kikyou for only two seasons, but so much of my life began in that place, both when I lived there first and when I returned for the last time with Fang.

Reiko taught me to recognize customers with wives and to sneak in when they were busy, to rifle through their discarded clothes for valuables and leave without being noticed, either by the man or by Toki, who had threatened to throw Reiko out if she saw her stealing again. But Reiko insisted that it was fine to steal from men who were not saving their love for their wives, and anyway there would be no trouble because if they noticed they had been robbed, they would not admit that they had been to the pleasure house.

With the money Reiko taught me to steal, I could buy new clothes that fit me better and food twice a day. I did not spend all day begging, but instead I spent it honing my new craft, learning to steal from market stalls and then to pick pockets. I still played games with Reiko every morning, and she had told me that I should teach my fingers to be clever and quick when they were still small. She would show me a trick with a ball and cups, where she would move the ball without being seen, and I had to try to steal the ball away from her without being seen. My fingers grew quick, and when they were not quick enough, my feet grew quicker.

But one day, Sumiko found me and told me that I could not go back to the house. I had escaped beatings, but still, shopkeepers had seen me and were trading warnings about me, and Lord Hayato’s soldiers knew of me too. They were returning to the Fort, and many of them would come by the pleasure house. Toki did not want me to be seen there. At best, I would be captured and beaten. At worst, the whole house would be taken for thieves and imprisoned or worse. Toki would throw me out herself if she saw me again. I was angry at the time, but I do not blame her. She had six women to look after. Why risk all of them, and your business, for a child you do not really know, who has learned to find their own food?

I was angry, but I was also afraid. I was afraid of soldiers finding me, afraid of being beaten and thrown into a ditch to die. It was late spring, near summer, and I left Fort Kikyou to find what farms might still survive and need a farmhand. I did not seek out Reiko, or Momoko, or any of the other women to say goodbye–Koharu, Rinko, Kaho, or Toki, or Sumiko, who was born in my village. Their names are not important, but I want to have them written down anyway, because I do not think anybody else will care to remember them. 

I wish I could remember the people of my village the way I remember these women. I wish I could remember my father’s face or my sister’s name. But it was as if the fire and blood wiped away everything. Maybe that is why I can remember the women of Toki’s house–the last time I saw them, they were all alive. I wish I had said goodbye to them, because I never saw any of them again.

 

~~~~~

 

I went directly to the Bellsprout. I cannot remember now what I truly thought might happen. I had Fang, so perhaps I thought I had invoked some sort of blessing. Maybe I thought that they might recognize the odd shapes on what I still thought was just a big, warm rock. Maybe I was simply afraid to walk through the market in case any of the shopkeepers recognized me.

The monks were indeed surprised and impressed to see me with Fang walking happily at my side. They pronounced me blessed, and the head monk gave me a charm. It was not the paper sort that my father had brought home every year, which wore out and needed to be replaced the next year. It was a carved wooden thing on a white string. According to the head monk, it was carved with an inscription that would lead me to enlightenment. 

I should have known then that I was not truly blessed, for who should appear at the same moment that I put the charm around my neck, but Lord Hayato and the war-king who had been pursuing me?

This was the new Lord Hayato. I did not know this at the time, but his father, the old Lord Hayato and his war-Pokemon, his Fearow and his Noctowl and his mighty Pidgeot, had all been slain in the last battle. This battle had been against the clan Sakaki, an extremely powerful eastern clan. I knew nothing of clan Sakaki, or that the reason that Kamon was in Fort Kikyou was to demand tribute from the new Lord Hayato and his future allegiance. I did not know that they were there to make terms under the Great Bellsprout.

I knew none of this because it did not matter to me how and why they came to be there, only that they were there, and they saw me with Fang.

I ran, not caring for the direction or who saw me. I ran and they gave chase. Lord Hayato summoned up what soldiers he had left. They had no mighty war-Pokemon left, but their Pidgey were stronger than wild Pidgey. Some of them had Spearow, which at the time I took for an especially spiky, angry Pidgey. The new Lord Hayato had a Pidgeotto that was his personal war-pokemon-in-training. Most of all, there was more of them than there was of me, even with Fang at my side.

I tucked the stone under one arm and scooped up Fang in the other and I ran. He climbed up to lean over my shoulder and spit powerful sprays of water at our pursuers. I did not dare waste the time to look behind as I ran, but I heard the shrieks and thumps of birds being knocked from the sky and the yells of grown men and women being knocked down. I heard the sound of footfalls and the wingbeats in the air lessen. 

Then the Pidgeotto attacked me, sinking its claws into my shoulders. At any second I expected its beak to plunge into my neck or head, but Fang raked at its neck and belly with his claws until warm blood that was not my own soaked the clothes on my back and the claws fell from my shoulder. I kept running, and because I did not look behind I did not know it when I lost pursuit. I did not stop running until I ran into a cave in which to hide and the ground fell away beneath me, and I fell into darkness.

 

~~~~~

 

I do not know how long I lay in the darkness, in pain and afraid. The hole through which I had fallen let in a little light during the day, but at night the darkness was total. Standing up caused me great pain and I dared not venture into the caves, away from my only source of light. I know now that it is the height of foolishness to attempt to explore a cave without sure knowledge of your way out, but at that time I might have tried if not for the pain and the eyes. The darkness was full of them. 

We slept a little during the day, when there was light, but at night, when there was nothing but darkness, I shivered and clutched the warm rock while Fang sat on my lap, careful to avoid the pain in my left knee, and snapped nervously in the darkness all night long. I tried to carefully ration the little dried food I had with me, but I ate through all of it in time. Fang made water for me, to my surprise. He had knocked grown men and women to the ground with his sprays of water, but he let it trickle as gently as a mountain spring into my hands. It was not enough, however. I started to wonder what would happen to Fang if I died in that cave.

Then, to add to all of the strangeness, the rock in my arms shook of its own accord.

I had been sleeping, so when it shook and woke me up, I thought at first that I had been dreaming. But then it shook again, and I might have thrown it in my fright had not Fang, who was still sitting on my lap, clutched it firmly with his own little arms, rested his head atop it and looked me sternly in the eye. He clung to it when it shook again and gently crooned to it. I was afraid of the shaking, but Fang was not afraid of it the way he was afraid of the eyes watching in the dark, so I kept it close. More days and nights passed and the rock grew warmer and warmer and shook more and more, even beginning to make little noises. I grew used to it enough to fall asleep with it rocking and cooing in my arms, though perhaps the hunger and exhaustion were finally taking over.

I was awakened again by a  _ crack _ .

I truly thought then that I was going to die. There were eyes in the darkness, I could not walk, and the warm, magical stone in my arms had suddenly broken though I had not dropped it. Whatever god had blessed me, it seemed I had incurred its displeasure and it was telling me so by the spreading cracks over the seemingly-solid surface of the rock. I closed my eyes and hugged it tighter, as if I could press the broken edges of the rock back together, praying for forgiveness, for deliverance from this cold, dark place.

Then parts of the rock fell away, and I felt something warm and soft.

I heard a sound like the chirping noises that the rock had been making, but higher and louder and trilling. I opened my eyes and, though it was dark, I could  _ see  _ it.

The top had broken off of the rock and underneath was a face, tinier than even a newborn baby’s, smiling up at me and glowing gently, a little light in the darkness. The rock wiggled and I ran my hands over it, feeling tiny nubs of paws and feet poking out of the sides and bottom. The rock chirped happily at me, then giggled when Fang licked it gently.

I started crying. I could not stop. I thought I was dying, and my baby sister’s spirit had come for me through the rock and was here to lead me to the afterlife. I did not want her to be here. Who would burn my body? My spirit might be in this cave forever, become one of the eyes watching in the darkness, and she would be trapped with me. As the rock waved its tiny paws and glowed brighter and brighter, I think I babbled apologies, begging her not to stay here with me. The light grew so bright it was blinding and I thought that I was dead. 

Then the light faded and there were stars overhead and grass beneath me. I could not understand, and I fell unconscious again.

 

~~~~~

 

I am still grateful for the kindness of the fisher-folk of the Violet River, but when they saw me first they must surely have been as much afraid as anything else. Even broken, starving and unconscious, at my side was Fang and in my arms was Rock. They must have thought me the child of a war-king, one with banners lost, perhaps in some battle. Regardless their reasons, they took me back to their village on the banks of the river and cared for me as I recovered my strength, and I am sure that Fang more than paid for any trouble or fear that we brought them in his skill at fishing. I drifted in and out of consciousness, but when I finally awoke properly I learned that Fang had been bringing back such heaps of Magikarp and Tentacool that the village had not only filled their stores of dried fish for years to come, but had more than ever before to sell in Fort Kikyou. 

Fang had grown bigger and was almost as tall as I. The red spines on his back had grown larger and longer and spread onto his head, and the yellow markings on his blue belly had grown in size and changed shape. His jaw had also grown bigger and more powerful, able to swallow the fish he ate for his own dinner whole. Rock, when I got to see him truly in daylight, looked much like the stone I had taken him for, small and round and white with blue and red markings, but now he had a small, smiling yellow face on top and a spiky, but soft, crest on top of that. His paws were short nubs, while his feet were a little flatter, allowing him to stand up. He rarely did, though, preferring to stay in my arms and crying inconsolably when removed. 

The fisher-folk tried to encourage me to stay. I wish I could have. Fang was happy when fishing for them, and because of him I did not have to work and wanted for nothing. I could not have done farm work, because the leg I had broken in my fall had not healed right, becoming twisted, and I struggled to walk without a stick to support me. But I could sit by the bank of the river while Fang fished, and the fisher folks’ children taught me to clean catches as they did, sitting by the river while their parents fished, talking and joking while their knives flashed as quickly and smoothly as blinking. Rock would sit in my lap, squealing with laughter whenever Fang returned with a catch. There were children my age, though I cannot recall their names now. It was so long ago and I was there only a short time, because as much as I wished to stay I knew I could not. I was too near to Fort Kikyou, and there were two war-kings who hunted me now. 

I could not return to Fort Kikyou. I did not wish to return to the cave full of eyes, which the fisher-folk told me was cursed in any case. The only other way was a second cave, a small one under the mountain that was not cursed but let only to a forest where, it was whispered, a god lived, and was filled with Pokemon so loyal that they would let no human pass alive. I had to sneak out in the dead of night because the fisher-folk were so insistent that if I went into that forest I would never return. I was more confident. I had Rock in one arm, tucked against my side as I limped with my stick, Fang leading the way. Even if these Pokemon did not like humans, I thought, they would see Fang and Rock and favour me. I had bags of dried fish and berries tied to my sash and tucked into my clothes. I had stolen these things, but I did not think of it as stealing because of the riches that Fang’s skill in fishing had brought to the village. 

And so I set forth to Ubume Forest, where I would begin to learn the truth of the gods, the place where I became the Ghost.

 

~~~~~

  
  


_ To:MrMort@tintower.fa _

_ Subject: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Mr. Minaki, _

 

_ This many be the single strangest email that I have ever received, and rest assured, my dear boy, I have received a great many strange emails. _

 

_ Professionally, I cannot accept what you have sent me without verification of how you can translate these scrolls. Personally, I am delighted and astonished to read these translations. If you are making these up from whole cloth, you are doing an astonishingly good job. The author--or perhaps narrator--of these scrolls, this “Ghost”, has described many known features of southeastern Johto prior to its unification under the Dragon Clan. “Ghost” apparently hails from the farm-forts that once dotted the foothills to the west of the Indigo Mountains. “Ghost” mentions “the language of the war-kings”--many of the upper classes that had stratified by this time spoke Upper Johton, a language entirely separate from the many indigenous languages across Johto. They did not attempt to educate their subjects in Upper Johton, instead allowing their servants and lieutenants to translate in order to keep themselves separate from the general populace. It was the Dragon Clan who enforced their language, which they did very successfully, eradicating indigenous languages in the process, no doubt including what “Ghost” spoke. _

 

_ They describe the vast cheri groves that did indeed once exist southeast of what is now Violet City, although the trees were lost to disease at around the same time as the Independence of Hoenn. There was indeed a fort-town in the place where Violet City now stands, though it was burned down roughly two hundred years before Violet City was established. Given the estimated age of the Bellsprout of Sprout Tower, the size that “Ghost” describes it as being places them sometime in the last century prior to the Dragon Empire completely unifying Johto and beginning its spread across the rest of the Fairlands. _

 

_ Most interesting is the mention of Kamon, of Clan Sakaki. Sakaki is a clan that, at one time, controlled half of Kanto and was spreading across Johto before being destroyed overnight in a battle with Clan Fusube, who started to take the land that Sakaki had held to grow into the Dragon Empire. Nothing remains of Clan Sakaki but records describing their loss and holdings at the time of their loss; even their banner is unknown. Kamon was likely the heir to the clan, as the heads of clans would take on their name--against, “Ghost” mentions an “old” and “new” Lord Hayato, which is in line with what we know of the period.  _

 

_ This is all most fascinating, and however it is that you are translating these scrolls, I am eager to read more. Either you are unlocking a truly unique piece of history, or you are weaving quite the fascinating lie--but for now, I choose to believe you. I am too curious not to want to know more! _

 

_ Yours truly,  _

_ Professor E. Reiton _


	2. Fragments 2a-2e

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team: Fang the Croconaw, Rock the Togepi

_ To: ereiton@goldenrodu.edu _

_ Subject: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Professor, _

 

_ I cannot thank you enough for your interest and your feedback. I understand that my refusal to share how I am translating these is a problem, academically, and I appreciate you not pushing the matter. I truly do hope that I can tell you more someday, but let’s just say that now is not the time. _

 

_ The translation I am sending you now contains a story that will seem fantastical, and I am curious to see what you make of it. I would like to put in that I don’t believe that this story is a metaphor, or an attempt to explain something that Ghost doesn’t understand--I think it’s genuine. I won’t say anymore, as I don’t want to influence your reading of it too much before you even begin, but I eagerly anticipate your thoughts. _

 

_ I’m also curious as to what you think of the nickname Ghost. It’s the title of an entire elemental class of Pokemon, but it was also, historically, a name for Haunter. These days, Haunter are mostly known as tricksters, more frustrating than frightening, but once upon a time they were greatly feared. Like most ghost-types, they’re able to pass through solid walls, making them nearly unstoppable and impossible to hide from, but it was also known for killing chosen victims extremely slowly, haunting them and draining them for months or even years. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the protagonist of the Scrolls, as Ghost probably isn’t what Haunter was known as in their language, but it would be a startling coincidence if Ghost was their word for ‘friendly and beloved by all’! _

 

_ I’m sure you’d rather be reading the Scrolls than my rambling, so once again I will simply thank you for your interest and add my congratulations on locating one of the storehouses of Saffron Museum--I hope not too much damage has been done to the contents! Best of luck on your restoration work. _

 

_ Sincerely, _

 

_ Mortimer Minaki. _

 

_ ~~~~~ _

 

Inside of the cave, we heard wailing.

It was a haunting sound of unbearable sadness, and though I thought at first it was the crying of ghosts, once I learned the truth it was so much sadder. It was a small, pink Pokemon, with a fat body, broad head and short limbs, and it was bleeding at the back where it looked like a tail should be, but now there was none. It was sitting next to a much bigger Pokemon like itself, bleeding from many places where it had been cut and beaten badly and it too had lost a tail. There were also pieces of shell embedded in its skin where some kind of large, grey shell had been broken behind it. It was easy to see that the big one was dying. 

I was at a loss for what to do, and I confess that my first thought was fear that whatever had hurt this Pokemon so badly was still nearby. Then I felt sadness for the little one. We were different species, but I felt in its keening the pain of losing your family when you are too small to yet understand why the world is taking them from you. 

Fang was sniffing around, looking unhappy. I took the time to kneel next to the little pink one and offer it some berries, which it took, but tried to feed them to the big one, pushing one berry into another into the mouth of the big one as it chewed weakly. A strange delight rose in me to see the big one slowly revive. I had never healed anything before. At home, I had been too young to be responsible for caring for the illness or injury of anybody else. My sister had died in my arms, coughing and coughing in the smoke until her little lungs could take no more. My mother had died on the ground next to me. I had since done nothing but try to keep myself alive, a task so difficult and all-consuming that I had nothing to spare for others. Now I was watching this creature, who I had found bleeding and dying on the ground, slowly rise to its feet as the bleeding stopped and even before my eyes the stump of its tail began to extend again.

It pushed a berry on the little one, whose desperate cries had turned to something much happier. It had cried for help and somebody had come. I could not imagine how good that much feel, to cry for help in such a dark, desolate place and have help come for you. Perhaps I would have felt that joy had I been conscious when the fisher-folk found me. Perhaps what I felt when I saw Sumiko had come close, but listening to this little pink Pokemon, I was sure I had never felt happiness in my life quite like the sound it was making.

Then the big one began, slowly but with great determination, to walk.

Fang ran after it, growling something, and the big one growled something back. The little one followed, chirping in distress. I did not know what was happening, but I did not want to stray far from Fang, so I followed.

 

~~~~~

 

The caverns that the pink Pokemon led me through were not deep. There were many places where light filtered through from holes in the ceiling above or cracks in the walls through which I could have left the cave. But Fang was following the pink Pokemon with an angry expression, and I was not going to leave Fang. I limped on my stick, holding Rock gently. He was whimpering unhappily, perhaps frightened, but I did not know what to do for him but hold him close.

The pink Pokemon did not move quickly, but they did not lead us far before we heard the voices of humans. It was by the banks of an underground lake that we saw the soldiers, each of them holding crying pink Pokemon and slicing through their tails with swords. 

The bigger of the ones who was leading us bellowed in fury, and as he did so, one of the soldiers was lit with a pink light and lifted into the air, struggling and yelling in shock as he did so. His sword clattered to the ground as the pink glow intensified, and then he was twisted in a way that human bodies should not twist and he no longer shouted.

This was the first time that I had ever witnessed psychic power, at least that I knew of, and it terrified me. The dead man fell to the ground and another was lifted. But there were many soldiers, and even this Pokemon’s psychic powers were slow. The others, swords in hand, charged the big pink Pokemon while it was slowly twisting another man to death. 

They had been cutting up these Pokemon while they were still alive and could scream. I later learned that these tails were considered a delicacy of the eastern clans, a fine treat for war-kings. I do not think I would have liked these men any better had I known why they were doing what they were doing. It did not matter much at the time. I did not want them to kill this Pokemon that I had saved, nor did I wish to let them continue hurting these Pokemon. 

I yelled at Fang to knock over these soldiers with his water and he did so, hitting them as if he were a tiny typhoon. Some dropped their swords when they were knocked down. I pointed to those who still had their swords and commanded Fang to bite them.

This day was also the first time that I ever saw Fang remove a man’s arm, and he did so effortlessly, as if snapping a twig the way he had done when he was little. Some managed to strike him with their swords, but in his rage it seemed that he felt neither pain nor fear. Watching the pink Pokemon crush men in pink light and Fang leave them bleeding on the ground, I wondered that any Pokemon could let itself be commanded by a human. Even now, I wonder that they let such power be directed by such weak, fragile creatures. Pokemon are more loyal than any human, and I am humbled and grateful to have lived alongside them for so long. At the time, I could only watch in fear and awe as the soldiers were slaughtered. One or two managed to run, leaving behind the limbs that Fang took. 

After an eternity of screaming, the only humans left were the unconscious, the dead, and me. 

 

~~~~~

 

The pink Pokemon glowed constantly as they recovered from their injuries and began to follow the big one out of the caves. I did not know what else to do, and Fang followed them, so I did too. I felt lucky that the pink Pokemon moved so slowly, because it was easy for me to keep up while leaning on my stick. Fang too was limping. I did not know how much of the blood that covered him was his own and how much was from his victims, but I could not see the extent of his wounds beneath it.

Outside of the cave, we were already among the trees. I was astonished to see so much green, as it was not yet quite spring, yet every pointed tree around me was a dark and rich colour rather than dead grey, and tiny pointed slivers of green coated the ground under my feet. The trees were not so thick on the side of the hill which contained the caves, but as I followed the pink Pokemon deeper into the forest, the trees grew so thick that they began to block out the light of day. Soon, the forest was deeper and darker than the caves had been, and once again the only light was of the soft pink glow of the slow, friendly Pokemon.

We walked and walked and walked until reaching a large, crystal-clear pond. The pink Pokemon slipped into the water, crooning happily, and once they were in the water they moved much more quickly and smoothly than they did on land. I sat down next to the big one as it dangled its tail on the water, settled down contentedly like a child with a fishing rod. Exhausted by the long walk, I leaned against its warm, smooth side and almost instantly fell asleep. 

I was awoken by a glow in the dark. 

Something green flew across the water towards me. The pink Pokemon were singing to it, all peering out of the water and singing out joyously. The green light lowered to each of them in turn as it made its way across the water. Each one, after the light reached them, waved their tail happily out of the water, and after perhaps seven or eight of them, I realized that this was because the light was restoring their tails entirely. Fang also called out to the light, and Rock began chirping in delight. At some point Fang had swum in the water, and now I could see his injuries. Most did not seem serious, but there were many of them, and a cut on his right arm looked terribly deep.

The big pink Pokemon cried out, and the light flew towards us, healing first the big pink Pokemon, then healing Fang, his injuries vanishing at a touch. I think there was a little shape inside of it, but the green glow was so bright in the absolute darkness of the forest that I could not make it out. I know only that it kissed me, on the forehead, like a mother kissing a child. When it did, I felt warm all over. I watched, enchanted, as it flew away, disappearing among the trees. When I stood in an attempt to see it, I found that my leg had been healed, as if it had never been injured. 

I jumped up and down several times in delight, which made Rock laugh. The pink Pokemon sang and sang and sang in happiness, and it was not long before it began to rain, warm water dripping down on us through the dark, dense trees. I did not think to seek shelter, because this rain felt warm and soft in exactly the way that the green light’s kiss had, and the pink Pokemon were all singing so happily. It did not occur to me to be afraid of anything at all.

  
  


~~~~~~

 

We slept a night by that lake. One of the great old trees by the lake had roots so thick and extensive that a hollow had formed under them without disturbing the tree, and I was able to sleep under there with Rock, keeping us both safe from the continual rain. Fang slept out in the water with the pink Pokemon. That night, I had a curious dream, one that was meaningless to me at the time, yet remained painted vividly in my mind.

All I did was walk. I was seeking a rainbow that I could see in the sky before me, but my surroundings were ever-changing. At first I was in a forest, with mud under my feet. Then I was in a city, walking on cobbles while wooden towers rose before me. Then I was walking in a different city, with strange-looking stone buildings. Sometimes I was walking on grass, or dirt, or different kinds of stone, including a road seemingly of one long, unbroken black stone. Sometimes there were trees around me, or I was on a cliff with a strange world below me, or buildings of all kinds rising above me, but always there was the rainbow, and it called to me. I reached for it with feathered hands, but the feathers were heavy with blood. I looked around at this point, realizing that there were people walking with me, and every one of them was burning.

I awoke to Rock chirping softly to it, the sound somehow calming my shaking heart.

The rain had settled down to a drizzle and I prayed in a way that I had not in a long time, pressing my forehead to the earth in supplication. Fang and I had been healed at a touch by a living light, not a god that I was familiar with but clearly a god nevertheless, or some sort of powerful spirit equally deserving of greatest respect.

Still, there was one part of the stories that the monks had told us in the village, so long ago, that came to my mind then, and it comes to my mind now as one of the great truths of such stories. When gods give gifts, these must be accepted with great gratitude, but it does not do well to ask more of gods. In every tale, from the farmer who demanded rain from Lugia to the girl who asked Ho-oh for a rainbow, those who asked more of gods than they had been given were punished. The intended moral, I am sure, was to teach children not to be greedy, but it is still true regardless that to ask more of a god who has already given you a gift is to invite disaster. Perhaps the dream had also been a gift, of sorts, or so I thought at the time. I am sure now that it was a warning. Perhaps it was meant kindly, to warn me, but it did no good because I could not understand it, and what is the good of a gift such as that? What good are kind intentions that save nobody and help nobody?

When a green Pokemon, as tall as a man with blades for arms, flew down from the trees and chirped something, Fang tugged on my arm to tell me to move, and I did so. The forest was a beautiful place, but if it was time for us to leave, I would not contest that. 

Time was hard to gauge in that deep, dark forest, but by the time the trees ahead of us were thinning, they were letting through the golden light of twilight. The blade-armed Pokemon left us then, flying into the trees and disappearing. Rock waved goodbye, singing something happy. I waved too, because why not? It is good to thank a guide, even a Pokemon, because to guide somebody who is lost is a special kindness. 

At the edge of the forest was a logging camp. Whole trees were lying on their sides, some in the process of being stripped of bark and leaves, but all had been abandoned apparently in the middle of a workday, and it was easy to see why. Arrows were still embedded in some logs, and there were splashes of dried blood on some, but there were no bodies. Either nobody had been killed, or all bodies had already been removed. 

I could see no people, only the distant bulk of the walls of the grand city of Kogane, though I did not then know what was behind those walls and had assumed it was merely a fort-town, like Kikyou. There were a few small houses scattered between the abandoned camp, and I was considering whether or not to approach one, to see if there was shelter or food to be had, when I heard a shriek above me. I looked up and, in the last of the evening light, I saw a tiny, dark shape, which flew downwards. I watched it fly down, not into the forest nor the river flowing through it, but to the far side, where the logging camps went further than I could see.

It flew down to something walking through the abandoned, attacked camps, something that I could not see clearly in the dark, but which was clearly not a human, some large, four-legged Pokemon.

I ran towards the river. I could swim and so could Fang, so perhaps if we had crossed the river they could not have followed us, but I did not reach the river before I was surrounded with choking, terrible smoke that burned in my lungs even as it filled my mind with icy cold.

 

~~~~~

 

When fire turns things to smoke, that smoke tastes of something. Most smoke tastes of wood. When my village burned, the smoke tasted of wood but also of meat, as if the people with whom I spent my childhood were no more than dinner, roasting on a spit. 

This smoke tasted of nothing. It was cold, and in my mind I could see fire, but in my mouth there was nothing but tasteless, choking cold, and in my arms my little sister was coughing and coughing.

But then the smoke was gone, and it was not my sister in my arms, but Rock, who was crying out and waving his little arms. Fang stood at my side, snarling as the young war-king stood before us. Standing at his side, as Fang stood at mine, was a yellow creature with a long neck and a low, heavy body. A leaf was growing from its head, which made me think of the tiny green Pokemon that the young war-king had received from the same farm from which I had taken Fang. It had changed, as Fang had, and its sheer size made it look more of a war Pokemon than the pretty little thing it had been before. 

The young war-king was staring at me with a shock I could not understand at the time, any more than I could understand the question that he shouted at me. I did not try to. I took his hesitance, I took Fang’s arm, and we ran again, diving into the river that ran out of the forest. 

It is not safe to jump into a river that you do not know, especially when it is dark. This river was so much deeper than I had thought, and under the water I could only curl as tight as I could around Rock and hang on to Fang. He tried to swim, but even though he was nearly as big as me, he was not big enough to carry me and swim. I think at some stage he grabbed my clothes in his jaws as he fought the current. If not for him, I would have crashed against some underwater rocks and been smashed or drowned. 

As it was, by the time hands pulled us from the water, I was frozen and near dead from lack of air. Rock coughed so pitifully in my arms that all I could focus on was trying to warm him, holding him close even though I could be no warmer than he, patting his shell the way you pat a baby’s back to burp them. I do not know if this helped, but soon he was breathing normally, though we were both shivering. At last I looked up to see who had rescued us. 

We were in the dark, mud under my knees, frigid water lapping at my ankles. Something was over our heads, blocking any light, but to our right and left I could see the water, silver in the moonlight. I could see nothing in the shadows before us, but Fang was standing in front of me, teeth bared, so there must have been somebody there. 

When I called out, it was a child who answered me. I was soon to learn that these children were some of the many on the streets who searched the riverbank nightly for valuables abandoned by those more fortunate than themselves. They had meant to loot what they thought to be a corpse, only to find me still living and Fang very protective of me. All this, I learned when I lived in the Underground. At this time, what I learned was that the river had carried us inside of the walls of Kogane City, capital city of one of the mightiest clans in all the world. That is what they were at the time, anyway. 

  
  


~~~~~

 

_ To:MrMort@tintower.fa _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Mr. Minaki, _

 

_ Unfortunately, the roof of the warehouse collapsed, and a great deal of pottery has been broken. Restoring it will be quite the task, but we are grateful to find anything at all! Still, after such a trying day’s work, I must say that it was a delight to sit down at my computer and see another email from you. _

 

_ This is indeed a fascinating tale that Ghost has woven about their experiences in the forest now known as Azalea. It does have the hallmarks of the sort of tales that were recorded in regards to war-kings of this period--Lord Such-and-such performing an act of valour and being rewarded by a god as a result. Ghost has no doubt heard of such tales, as they referred to such in the first scroll, so they could have fabricated such a story for themself, although there are notable differences to how such stories usually go. These stories are almost exclusively about valour in battle, yet the act for which Ghost is rewarded is healing, not fighting, and they do not portray how Fang and the wild Pokemon fought in a glamorous light, but rather a tone of some horror. The god that blesses them, likewise, does so by healing injuries, not slaying their foes in battle. This is most likely indicative of how Ghost’s personal values differ from those of the aristocracy of their time. Ghost has suffered great losses in war and thus can no longer see glory in it, unlike the war-kings who would battle alongside their men but nevertheless would usually be among the last to die in any battle and would more commonly be captured alive and allowed a dignified suicide rather than being cut down on the field.  _

 

_ I understand that you are a man of great faith, Mr Minaki, having once been a monk in Ecruteak City, and I do not wish to disrespect your faith, but you must admit that a child happening upon Celebi is even more fantastical a notion than even you translating these scrolls at all! Celebi is surrounded by a convenient weave of myth to protect how scientifically unverifiable its existence is and how impossible its powers are--for example, Azalea Town being constructed in a forest said to be the home of the little god, explained by Celebi preferring peace and not appearing in times of war such as the expansion of the Dragon Empire! A more fanciful explanation than that the Dragon Clan were simply the first to bother settling in the heart of the forest rather than at its edges, as they did not believe in the local myths and legends.  _

 

_ I do not wish to suggest that people at the time were foolish or credulous, simply that they could not understand Pokemon in the way that we can now. Think of how long Togepi, such as Rock, were mythologized, or the undeserved negative reputation of Absol! _

 

_ The dream about travelling, fire and rainbows--almost certainly referring to Ho-oh, though I am sure I need not explain that to you--is also, if not a fiction of yours, almost certainly a fiction of Ghost’s. They refer to it as a warning, something relevant to their later life; retroactively claiming prophetic dreams was another trick that prominent war-kings and mystics of the time often used to mythologize themselves.  _

 

_ Most of the historical interest in this scroll lies at the end, when Ghost describes their arrival to Kogane. This mighty city, now Goldenrod, is one part of the period about which we have ample information, so I am curious to see how Ghost’s account matches up. The river gate being a weakness in the city’s outer defences is already known to history and was utilized in many wars spread over two centuries, though prior to the spread of the Dragon Empire, the city’s much stronger inner walls were never breached. These walls also strictly delineated the gap between rich and poor in the prosperous city, the largest in Johto for most of recorded history. Ghost is doubtlessly in the poorer outer city, where one would find beggar children and the extensive black market and crime hub known as the Underground. _

 

_ I would like to emphasize that, while I still cannot formally accept these translations without verification of how you translate them--I have faith in your assurances that explanations will come in time--I do still believe that you are translating a contemporary account, and that I am more inclined to believe that Ghost is selling us a tale than that you are. Regardless, I eagerly await your next submission. You have given me much to think on during the long hours of reconstructing pots! _

 

_ Yours truly,  _

_ Professor E. Reiton _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fang was WILDLY overlevelled by the time I hit Azalea, so he pretty much did just Bite his way through the gym and the rival battle. When I went into the rival battle, I wasn't quite playing enough attention because I was on the train and listening for the announcement of my stop, and I accidentally used Metronome with Rock instead of switching to Fang on the first turn. I lucked into Psychic, thankfully, but I switched immediately after. A stockpile of potions and antidotes allowed me to Bite past my rival's Bayleef, plus, y'know, just the solid HP of a level 25 Croconaw soaking up the Razor Leafs like nobody's business. But Ghost isn't at the point yet where they're willing or able to directly fight somebody like Kamon, so time for more running away!
> 
> Also starring a cameo from Celebi and some ominous dreams, because those are always fun. I cannot tell you how many times I have called Rock “Tobias” and had to go back and fix it.


	3. Fragments 3a-3g

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fang the Croconaw, Rock the Togepi

_ To: ereiton@goldenrodu.edu _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Professor, _

 

_ I can’t hide my disappointment that you are not inclined to believe in either Celebi or Ho-oh, but I can’t say I didn’t expect it. Of course, I’ve no doubt that most war-kings who claimed the blessing of gods were, as you say, merely seeking to mythologize themselves, but Ghost’s account contains enough unique details that I thought it might be worthy of further examination. _

 

_ Well, regardless, this scroll contains no fantastical tales, only the life of a child at the bottom of the sociological heap in one of the largest cities in the Fairlands prior to the rise of the Dragon Empire! I think the descriptions of the Underground may interest you in particular, as I understand that no accounts exist from actual members of the… well, from the account here, I hesitate to call it an “organization”, but I’ll leave further explanation to Ghost themself. I am aware that the existence of the Underground is only known to history at all due to execution records that list membership as a crime. I can’t help wondering if this means that there were people at that time executed for no real crime of their own, only association with known criminals…  _

 

_ Well, I’ve taken a lot of interest in the past as well as the future in recent years, and I must say that it makes me grateful to live in the times that I do! _

 

_ Sincerely,  _

_ Mortimer Minaki _

 

~~~~

 

When I first arrived in Kogane and wondered at its size, I was told that a person could walk for a full day and night and not reach from one side of it to the other. This was true, but only if you did not pass through the Inner City. As I was to learn, there were a great many ways to do so. 

Most of the children who found me in the river had fled from Fang, but there were two sisters, Moana and Mahina, who were more curious than afraid, more courageous than cowardly. When they asked me how a child such as myself came to befriend a creature like Fang, I told them honestly that I had stolen him as a baby. I could not think of a satisfying lie, and I felt sure that if they intended to sell me to the police I could easily fight or escape them, though I am glad now that it did not come to that. Instead they laughed with great delight and said that, if I was indeed a thief, there would be much work for me in the Underground.

Most of my supplies were gone, lost in the freezing river. I had thought only of clinging to Fang and Rock. Not knowing anything about the city in which I had found myself, lacking in food or coin, I eagerly accepted an offer of work. 

The Underground, I was soon to learn, did not exist beneath the earth, but simply beneath notice. It was made of people for whom being unseen and uncared-for was a weapon to be used against those who would not see them. I had learned something of this from the brothel women in Kikyou, who did as they pleased because few would speak to them or acknowledge them, but the Underground went so much further than simply making jokes about the lords and ladies of the land.

Moana and Mahina were the first members of the Underground that I met, but I cannot say how many more I passed as we walked along the riverbank in the dark. The sisters had pulled me ashore beneath a wooden dock for fishing-boats and we darted between these, the bright moonlight a danger and the shadows beneath the docks a source of safety. There were few soldiers in the Outer City, and most of the patrolling the walls, but even one seeing a strange Pokemon such as Fang wandering the city would be a danger. Moana promised me that the house to which we were travelling was on the river, but at first I was not sure if I should believe her, because both sisters regularly veered off-course to pluck out something that they saw in the water or in the sand. Small, dirty coins were pocketed, small and dirty stones abandoned, prizes examined quickly in the moonlight to see which they were. A lone and broken cooking-stick was picked up for the purpose of dragging floating things from the water, most of which were water-weeds to be quickly discarded but in one case yielded a badly torn shirt of beautiful cloth, embroidered with a pattern of leaves that was striking if colourless in the pale moonlight. It was the first time in my life that I had seen such rich cloth, and I remember being astonished that such a thing could be abandoned. Any child knows how to sew to repair a torn shirt. How could such a beautiful thing be thrown away when it could be so easily repaired?

When I voiced my amazement, the sisters laughed again, that bright, hearty laugh that I still remember, that made them family more certainly than even their startlingly alike faces. They might have been twins were Moana not a head taller than her sister. They handled their treasures incautiously, Mahina teasing her sister by slapping at her legs with the wet silk to make her startle. I was yet to learn how common it was to find such fine things, or how easily the rich of Kogane threw them away. 

At last we reached a shack that was roofless, the wood of its walls rotting and leaning. It did not seem to me to be a safe place to be, and that was what made it the kind of place in which the Underground could be found. Inside of it were more than a dozen pickpockets, all of them children, ranging from those so young they could barely walk to those beginning to grow the hair of men and women. Some were sleeping, while others were still picking through the spoils of the day, comparing their prizes and sharing stories. They all fell silent as Moana and Mahina escorted us inside. I, near frozen from the river, clutching Rock in my arms with Fang at my side, drew all eyes and caused those nearest the entrance to draw back. 

Amongst all of them was only one adult, the only one to stand up and approach rather than backing away. This was the Storyteller, though he was to teach me much more than stories.

  
  


~~~~~

 

I had stolen before, in Fort Kikyou, and I had the skills of a thief. I had nimble fingers, quiet feet, and keen eyes. But I had not the experience of the thieves of the Underground. Most of those younger than me had further years of experience. They were beggars and children of beggars, not those who had once had homes and farms and lost them but those who had had nothing from the moment that they were born into the world. Nothing, that is, except for each other.

To hone the skills I already had was easy. In the crowded city, it was simple to find new marks to rob. If you were sloppy and your face became known in one street, you moved to another, and another, though first it was important to look for other beggars, other thieves who would seek to rob the same people as you. I learned how to fight with my fists, as well as knowing when to fight and when to simply run away and find another street. I preferred the latter, in truth, and might often have run when I ought to have fought. I also learned the art of distraction, a skill I had glimpsed when I aided Reiko is stealing from her customers. Mahina, smaller and cuter, would distract a mark, begging them for money while sobbing pitifully. If the mark was kind enough to give her a coin, the sisters would leave them be, but if they shook her off in disgust, Moana would intervene, apologising for her sister before dragging Mahina away. The first time I saw them work, I did not see the moment when Moana stole the mark’s coin purse. I had to watch very carefully to see how she would push past the mark, or press her hands to their arm or chest as she stepped into the way, distracting them with an obvious touch from one hand so that they did not feel her snatching away their purse with the other. Sometimes it was not a purse, but the decoration from a woman’s hair or some small purchase that they had tucked into their belt. Their valuables disappeared like magic. Such things were then taken to merchants who were known to the Underground to be sold. Some hid inside of broken houses such as the one by the river, while others would meet us behind their shops, but only after dark.

Fang stayed in the river, happy to spend his days hunting and swimming in the depths and then to surface at night, when I could play with him and tell him what I had managed to steal today. Rock was more difficult, as he still cried when he was not with me, but I found that he could be swaddled as if he were a baby, and I was not the only street child nor the youngest to carry a baby around. Truthfully, I barely needed to hide him, I needed only to continue to be a dirty, hungry street child and nobody would look twice at me. Most did not look once. I could make a little coin, begging for sympathy for myself and my false baby sister, but there is not enough money in sympathy. The kind are not rich enough. I worked with an older girl named Ichigo, who like Moana would steal from marks while intervening and apologizing for us, who she pretended were her little sisters. At night, we practiced magic together, distraction and theft, teaching each other to be better thieves, but the best thief of all was the Storyteller.

He had once travelled, so I understood, but stayed in Kogane because of the progress of the war. This made sense to me. Inside of the walls, no soldiers were rampaging and nothing was burning. But he told us of far-off places to which he had travelled, people that he had met who had strange ways and believed strange things, songs that he had learned in foreign tongues and mysterious Pokemon that he had seen. His favourite, at this time, was the great bird who made rainbows, Ho-oh. After every rain that left rainbows, he would point to them and tell us that Ho-oh, which was a firebird, was celebrating the clear skies.

I asked him one night about the green light that I had seen in the forest and he told me of Celebi, a little god who loved beautiful forests and peaceful times. He said it would be very hard to find in these times of war, and asked me to retell the story many, many times. I did so, but when I did, I started to ask that he teach me something in exchange. He spoke the language of the war-kings, so he would teach me that, a few words at a time, then a few sentences. 

I asked Ichigo if we could go to the shops closer to the walls of the Inner City. I learned that there were no shops inside of the Inner City, only the fine homes and gardens of the rich, who would send their servants to shop in the Outer City. Closest to the Inner City walls were the shops which only the servants of lords and ladies could afford to visit, places where their fine clothes and jewellery were made, beautiful furniture for their rooms and toys for their children. Lords and ladies had to have the most beautiful things, and even their eating-sticks were finer than anything I had ever seen. Stealing the coin purses and small purchases of these servants could make us more money at once than all day in a lesser street, but there were also soldiers in these streets who would chase away any beggars quickly, in case we were thieves, and the streets were less busy, so we had to be careful. Ichigo would only go every few days and not for long, but that was fine. What I wanted was not just the money, but the chance to hear these servants speaking to each other in the language of war-kings, to see how much I could understand. At first it was only a word, one or two, surfacing amongst the meaningless sounds like fine cloth amongst the water-weeds, but slowly I learned more and more.

My ear became accustomed to the sound of the language, and I stole away with unknown words, bringing them back to the Storyteller to trade for their meaning. He took pride in my progress, and delighted in my growing ability to imitate the voices of the servants that I overheard. This skill I learned by accident. I did not mean to match their voices, but I would whisper unfamiliar words over and over exactly as they had said them, and I had already practiced changing my voice a little depending on whether I should appear to others as a boy or a girl. I began to do it in earnest, seeing as the Storyteller paid a little better for the entertainment, or so I thought at the time. 

I do not know what he did all day, but he had coins and began to offer them to me in exchange for going back to these streets and just listening. I could squeeze into the crawl-spaces beneath the shops that were too small for an adult like him, and from there I could hear things that at first meant nothing to me. I could understand the words, but a cook buying different food because her lady had a guest, or a maid purchasing a new toy for a child’s birthday–it was meaningless to me. What was it to me what parties or other idle pursuits the lords and ladies were enjoying while their servants did their work for them? But the Storyteller was very interested in such things, and so he would pay me to go back, day after day after day. He gave me a small stick with a knife on the end, and I was told that it was the sort used by boys hired to weed out Rattata that would burrow beneath shops and eat into storerooms. If I was ever spotted, and sometimes I was, I needed only show them the stick and the small purple pelts tied to it, and explain that that was what I was doing, and I would be left alone. 

One day, I did indeed find a Pokemon beneath a shop, but it was not a Rattata. It was a Spearow, one that was injured. She had left a trail of feathers and blood as she had crawled beneath the shop, and when I found her she scratched at me with her claws, but she was not strong enough to do much. It was clear to me that she would die if she was left. I let Rock out of the sling on my back, hoping that the sight of him would calm the Spearow. He chirped to her and she chirped back, the two of them conversing in their own language, and when I reached for her next she did not fight me. I tied Rock back onto my back and tucked the Spearow in with him, then returned to the shack by the river early. 

We named her Kenya and we all cared for her, bringing her water and sparing extra bites of food, but the Storyteller was most interested in her leg and the paper that had been tied to it. I could not read and so the writing was meaningless to me, but to him it was something very valuable indeed. 

By dawn, Kenya had recovered in that amazing way that Pokemon do, and the Storyteller asked me if I wanted to see inside of the Inner City. 

 

~~~~

 

One of the stories that I learned from the Storyteller is that humans are a sort of water-type Pokemon, secretly. You can tell by the way we are always found near water. The more water, the more humans. On rivers and soft, fertile earth that holds rain, you find many humans. On lakes, you find even more. By the sea, you find cities. Asagi is on rocky mountainside, and Tanba is on a little island, but Kogane is on vast, soft, flat land by the ocean, and so is greater than all of them put together. And because the city is mighty, the clan Akane is mighty too, drawing large armies from their huge city. On the edges of their land, those armies battle. Behind them are miles of farms, then the Outer City while the things from those farms are sold and crafted, and then there is the Inner City, where the Clan Akane itself lives. 

Much of what happened next made little sense to me at the time, but I think it will make better sense to you if I explain the reason why the Storyteller wanted me to enter the Inner City. I did not learn all of this until much later, but the Storyteller had once been the chief entertainer for Lord Akane himself. He had been accused of being a spy for an enemy clan, and ordered to commit honourable suicide. He had instead taken all of his valuables and fled, and had since been hiding in the Outer City, slowly selling off his things to have the money to pay street children to help appraise him of the goings-on of both the Inner and Outer Cities, attempting to think of a way to redeem himself for his shameful actions. I could not read, but the letter on Kenya’s leg had been a message saying that Clan Akane had a secret. The secret was that Lord Akane had died, and that his daughter and only child, Lady Akane, was a child of five. The clan was weak because her many aunts, uncles and cousins were all fighting for control of her and of the army that still fought on the borders of Akane land. This letter was exciting to the Storyteller, who hoped to redeem himself by capturing the true spy, for which he sought my help because Pokemon liked me. 

At first, all I knew was that the Storyteller was paying me to take the place of the children working in the Inner City. The fine houses of the extended Clan Akane had so many floors that needed polished, so many fires that needed set and cleaned out, so much water that needed carried. Neither luxury nor perfection are achieved without the hard work of a hundred hands. They would not hire street children, who are of course thieves, so any child who wished to be hired had to ask for work with their parents, and indeed most were the children of adult servants. But for all that working for the seat of the clan was a great honour, it paid poorly, far less than a clever street child might make, and households that would accept money to let another take their place were known to the Underground. The guards did not look carefully at the faces of servants, only counted our numbers, and the lords and ladies did not look at us at all unless we had displeased them somehow. Even then, they looked more with their feet than with their eyes. Child-servants often sold their place to a street child, who would not only take home the pay but whatever valuables they could lay sticky fingers on. I was forbidden by the Storyteller to steal while I was playing a servant, but I reasoned that what he did not know would not concern him, and indeed the wealthy had so many fine things it could often be days or even weeks before they knew that one had gone, and by then I was playing another servant altogether, and searches for thieves did not concern me. I regret to think of how many beatings I must have brought needlessly on other children, but then, I took a beating a time or two for another child that I was imitating. That was the way of things. Suffering fell like rain, and there was no rhyme or reason to where it landed.

I played many roles back then. When I was still a child, passing as either boy or girl at will was very easy, but now it grows harder every year. Still, a great deal is managed with a change of hair, a change of walk, and simply being where only a boy or a girl should be. One day I was a boy carrying wood where I was told, and the next a girl polishing floors. I continued to practice my growing capacity to imitate voices, wearing a different voice every day until other servants did not recognize me in different roles, even when I saw them two days in a row. I understand now that the Storyteller wanted me familiar with all of the great houses inside of the Inner City, and that this was why I worked a different job almost every day, visiting each house in turn.

And oh, such houses. When I first saw them on my first day of work, I was repeatedly hit for staring by Miyabi, the boy who had been paid that day to make sure that I did not get lost or draw attention. Staring at the lords and ladies, who owned so many beautiful clothes that they would wear all of them at once, would draw attention. So would asking for directions, or speaking in any way at all. The gardens were filled with beautiful flowers and precisely tended in patterns that made them pleasing to walk through, and ladies would walk through them for no other reason than to look at the beautiful plants, not because they had somewhere to go and the plants were on the way. They had ponds full of Goldeen and Magikarp that were kept neither for fighting nor for eating, but simply to feed and look at. Their homes were vast, with many, many rooms, so many of them decorated with paintings on the walls and doors, some of which I recognized from the Storyteller’s stories. I saw the birds of thunder, flame and freeze dancing on many walls. I saw Lugia casting storms with stunning, whirling winds and waves on others. I saw Ho-oh drawing vibrant rainbows, more colourful than any I had ever seen in a true sky. I could hardly believe that such things had been made by human hands.

I saw all these things and I loved them, but it was not long before I became angry again. The lords and ladies had such beautiful things and kept such high walls to keep most from even seeing them. War-kings would go fight with their soldiers, at least, but these lords and ladies did no work that I could see, only spent their days in idle play like little children. In fact, they were worse than children, for in the Underground even children would work, and children worked too in service of these idle, beautiful, useless people. They had so many wonderful things that they cared so little for, and I began to think about what I could steal without notice. They had many beautiful pet Pokemon that I had never seen before. They were often to be seen walking at their owners’ sides or playing with their children. There was one that I saw often, even while working in different places every day. He was a little brown Pokemon with a lot of white fur around his neck and a very big, fluffy tail, and he followed one of the ladies as she, as it seemed, visited every other house every day. I slipped him a little bit of food every time our paths crossed, and his lady never noticed, while he began to look up when he smelled me. The lady called him Moon. I was sure I could not steal him without his loss being noticed, but perhaps they would not think to look in the shack by the river. I heard ladies whispering that rare Pokemon might be stolen by gangs. I had been warned by other children to avoid these gangs, even if many children of the street ended up joining them as adults. They ran brothels, gaming houses and drinking houses in the north part of the Outer City, and fought often, not just exchanging blows as street children did but with knives to kill each other. Perhaps they would be blamed for the theft of a rare Pokemon.

I heard so much talk that I paid little attention to. As time passed, my pride in my mastery of the language of the war-kings was diminished by how little, it seemed to me, they said that was of value to hear. They spoke of the weather, the passing of the seasons, the spring flowers giving way to summer heat, the games of their pet Pokemon and their children, and always, always whatever new, beautiful clothes or food or things that they had bought. But the Storyteller was interested in all things, and would ask me many questions every day. He looked after Rock and Kenya while I went to work every day, because I could not carry a false baby but ever since we had found Kenya, Rock had stayed by her side, caring for her as she healed. She had been very scared by whatever had hurt her, and was shy of the touch of anybody but myself and Rock, who had found and saved her. This was why the Storyteller needed me. He needed to know who it was who had written the letter tied to Kenya’s leg, for it was not signed, and thus he needed me to carry Kenya into the Inner City, to find out who else she would trust. When he finally told me this, I immediately saw a problem, and told him so. Kenya was too big to hide in my clothes without somebody taking notice, and no servant child could possibly own a Pokemon. I would immediately be arrested, accused of theft and punished, possibly killed, and I had not even stolen Kenya really. 

But it was then that I learned the reason that I had been going to so many different places in the Inner City. This time, I would be going at night, and I would not be walking through the gate. 

 

~~~~

 

The walls of the Inner City were high, even higher than the walls of the Outer City, and buildings of the Outer City were not allowed to be built nearby, in case people tried to climb onto the roofs to reach up the wall. The gates were guarded night and day. But as The Storyteller would say, humans are water, and water always finds a way. Our way into the Outer City was water, and so too was our way into the Inner City, the first time we took Kenya back. 

It was to be the night of a full moon, and the sky was clear, and as the sun was setting, the Storyteller and I argued. The night would be clear and bright, and I did not want to try to sneak around the Inner City on a bright night. I thought I would be seen for sure, but the Storyteller knew more than I did of the useless things that the people of the Inner City loved. 

They loved things that were only temporary, he explained, like flower petals in the spring, falling leaves in the autumn, and the full moon whenever it came. Perhaps their love of such things is why they so easily threw their beautiful things away. I wonder if they thought that throwing things away would make them more beautiful. I do not understand loving something because it does not last. Many things end, but endings are not beautiful. Endings are often abrupt, and cruel, and unfair, and pain is not beautiful. But then, many people think pain is wonderful and noble when it is not their own, especially those who do not truly understand suffering. 

At least this nonsense was useful. All of the people of the Inner City were going to go to the main house for a party to look at the full moon, so as long as I stayed out of sight of the guards on the walls and stayed away from the party, I could walk around the Inner City without being seen. The way in was the river. It did not flow through the Inner City, but instead of a river the Inner City had many deep wells from which to draw water. The water must be drawn from near the river, and though it took many dives, Fang was able to dig underwater to find one of the wells. Then, I wrapped Rock and Kenya well together, and I held them with one arm while holding onto Fang with the other and he swam us into the well. I unwrapped Rock and Kenya and pointed out a bucket sitting on the edge of the well far above. Kenya was a smart Spearow, and she flew at the bucket, knocking it down and, with it, the attached rope that would allow a person to pull it up. I knew, from working in the Inner City, that the bucket was tied firmly to a post above, and so with care and Rock tucked into my clothes, I could climb up the rope. I told Fang to wait in the well and crept through the city with Kenya and Rock. 

Perhaps it is better to say that I followed Kenya. That was the plan, to see where she would go, where her home was, and thus who was the spy. 

During the day, the Inner City was ever bustling with servants at work, with patches of serenity cleared wherever the lords and ladies were walking so that they did not have to see poor people, who are apparently not beautiful even though we are very temporary. At night all was still and silent and empty. I could hear distant music from the party, but I focused on keeping my own footfalls as silent as could be while chasing after Kenya, who flew low among the buildings. Of course, she was a spy bird. She had been trained to not be seen, I am sure. 

The garden to which Kenya led me was very close to the home of the head of the clan. Kenya sat in one of the trees and began to groom her wings, and as she did I looked around, realizing that I had never seen this garden before. Many of the lords and ladies had private gardens that only specific, trusted servants were permitted access to. As I thought about the route that we had taken and the homes of the Inner City, I knew that we were by the house of the uncle of the head of the clan, a man who had long lived on the edges of the Kogane land but had recently lost his son in a battle and returned to the Inner City to mourn. Servants had gossiped about how he, with no son any longer and thus no heir, would be best to look after the young Lady Akane without trying to steal her position. He was one of Lady Akane’s most trusted relatives.

And Kenya, the spy bird, had flown into his private garden.

 

~~~~

 

I do not know if I had aunts or uncles or cousins. As a child, I addressed all of the adults in the village who were not my parents as “aunt” or “uncle”, except for those who were old enough to be “grandmother” or “grandfather”. I do not know which, if any, were siblings of my parents. They must have had some, but as a child I did not observe such things. Our village was so small that doubtless most of us were related to each other in some fashion, anyway. Whether by blood or not, I remember a sense of closeness amongst those people with whom I spent the first few years of my life. I was as safe with any adult in the village as I was my own parents. Of course there was discipline for misbehaving children, but that an adult could raise a hand to a child and truly mean them harm was, before the village burned, unfathomable to me. Even after, the thought in my mind was that those soldiers who had slaughtered my people had done so because they were strangers, and so the soldiers did not care. To wish harm upon a child whom you had seen grow up, who was your  _ family _ , was still beyond my understanding. 

As the Storyteller told me, rich people did not care so much about such things. They had servants to raise their children for them, and so cared less for them. It still shook me to my core to think that the one who was selling Lady Akane’s secrets to her enemies could be her own uncle. That the war-kings did not care about poor children, I already knew, but could they not even care for their own?

The thought came to me then that rich people had many servants. Perhaps it was not the uncle at all, but one of his servants who was the spy and traitor. As a child, this seemed so desperately important that I had to prove it before reporting back to the Storyteller. I had to know who, exactly, had trained Kenya. I thought it extra useful that almost everybody in the Inner City would be in one place, viewing the Full Moon. I could let Kenya go, see to whom she would fly, and then leave to report to the Storyteller without myself being seen. This plan seemed brilliant to me, at the time. I picked Kenya up and hurried off, following the distant sound of music.

I had never before entered the gardens of the Main House. They were yet more lavish and splendid than all of the others put together, with huge flowers that I had never seen before and a lake all of its own. The lords and ladies were sitting on boats in the water, listening to the music being played for them from the banks of the lake while they looked up at the bright, shining moon. Servants were clustered around the lakeside, some preparing careful, elaborate piles of food on more small boats to be floated out to the lords and ladies. I hid behind a tall, twisted tree with carefully shaped bunches of leaves on the ends of its branches and let Kenya go, watching to see where she would fly.

In the moonlight I could see them all so clearly, and for the first time I saw what had to be Lady Akane. She was the youngest child present, and she was so  _ small _ , even with her many layers of clothing and her hair piled up high on her head. In her arms she held something very small and round that was waving small arms and singing as it looked up at the moon. It was clearly a Pokemon, but not one that I had seen before, but I did not have time to look at it for long before Kenya swooped down.

She did not fly down among the servants. She flew down amongst the lords and ladies on the boats, landing on the shoulder of the only adult sharing a boat with Lady Akane, a tall man with a neat moustache and beard. I stared at him, intending to remember his face well to describe to the Storyteller, but I stared too long. 

Rock cried out briefly, the only warning I had before somebody behind me shouted. I had, in my urgency, neglected to pay attention to the guard patrols, and the guards were looking not up at the moon but at the gardens where they patrolled, watching for thieves and intruders such as myself. One of them had done his job very well and found me, and the only place to run was down the banks, towards the lake. 

 

~~~~

 

When the first guard grabbed me, I screamed. I think this upset Kenya, who I could hear shrieking, and it surely upset Rock. When he cried out, the sling in which I carried him caught fire. This at least caused the guard to let go of me, afraid of being burned, and freed me to throw off the sling before the rest of my clothes caught fire. I was panicking, I know, afraid of the heat of the flames, and I did not think that I was dropping Rock. I did not think of anything but getting the fire away from me.

I lost some time in the frantic grip of fear, but when I finally looked up and understood, I could see some guards clustered around the lake edge, waving their long blades in the air, attempting to keep Kenya from attacking from the air, but she was too small and fast for them to hit. Several others were drawing bows, too afraid to get close to Rock. Every time that Rock waved his little hands, something odd would happen. Leaves would fly into the air, as sharp as knives; jets of water would suddenly rear from the lake, striking like serpents; small bursts of flame would appear in the air; pebbles would fly from the earth and hit the guards, as if thrown by mischievous children. The bows frightened me. Even through the chaos, what if one arrow got through and hit Rock? What if his shell was not as hard as a stone?

I snatched him up and ran, this time towards the lake. I knew that bows could not hit me underwater. I did not think of much more than that. I did not have a plan to escape. Later, I would learn the most important rule, and it is that you do not go in to anything or anywhere without a plan for how to get out. But I was a frightened child, and forgot all plans. 

I did not get into the water before I was lifted by nothing and found myself dangling in the air. I clutched Rock, my legs kicked wildly, but I could not move. Rock cried out too, and in response I heard singing–a gentle, lovely sound which somehow made me afraid. 

Looking down, I saw many things. I saw the guards, their long blades now pointed at me, their bows drawn and pointed at me. I saw the rich people clustered on the lake, Lady Akane amongst them, and in her arms a bright pink glow. I knew that whatever was glowing was what was singing, and what was holding me in the air, like a Pidgey for a huntsman to shoot from the sky. 

Kenya swept across them, snapping bowstrings in her fury, and those arrows that were fired missed both her and I, but those with their bows still intact fired, and with a shriek, Kenya hit the ground. I cried out for her, but the guards paid no attention, those with their bows intact only drawing new arrows to try again to hit me. 

They did not get to try again.

The water reared up again, but far stronger than when Rock had moved it, each powerful blast knocking many men off of their feet. The rich, too, were screaming as their boats capsized, dropping them into the water, and I too was dropped. 

When I fell under the water, I saw my saviour, as he always was: Fang, using the water of the lake as his own, sending out jet after jet from his powerful jaws. I could only see him for a moment before the moonlight was blocked by people falling into the lake, flailing to swim in their many layers of fine clothes. I scrambled for the surface myself, having been too startled to take a breath and afraid that Rock would drown. When I did, I could hear shouting all around me, demands for servants to help them, and above that, the high shrieking of a child who could only be Lady Akane, demanding her nursemaid.

I did not feel concerned over whether or not the many lords and ladies around me would drown under their heavy riches, but I admit I was relieved to hear that the little girl would be okay. Even now, I cannot help sympathy for children, no matter whose. The children of the rich do not choose their station in life any more than the children of the poor. It is up to adults to understand and affect the world.

I scrambled for the shore, desperate to find Kenya. Many guards were on the ground, unconscious, while others were too busy, torn between attempting to attack Fang in the water and trying to rescue their lords and ladies. I stayed low to the ground, scrambling on hands and knees, or rather hand and knees, as I refused to drop Rock again. When I found Kenya, I cried for joy. She was whimpering unhappily, because the arrow had stuck in her wing, but it had not struck her through the head or body. I pulled out the arrow, apologizing for the pain it must cause, then picked her up and held her close in my other arm.

Then there was a most terrible bellow, and I looked up to see a tremendous monster bearing down on me.

 

~~~~

 

Perhaps you have not seen a Miltank. Before going to Kogane, I had only seen one. She lived at the big farm by the lake, the one from where I had stolen Fang, and her milk was part of why that farmer was so much richer than many others. Miltank milk is as sweet as a mother’s, delicious and good for the health of all ages, and can be made into all manner of treats by those who know how. Miltank are worth their weight in gold, and they can weigh a great deal. 

Despite their great value, I have never heard of any thief attempting to steal one, and I would never try myself. It is not just their milk that is like a mother’s. They protect and care for those they have made their own as a mother protects her child. When Lady Akane’s mother died giving birth to her, Lord Akane acquired a young Miltank as a replacement. Her milk was drawn by maids to feed the infant Lady, and the child grew up sleeping nestled into her Miltank’s soft, pink side. I learned all of this from the Storyteller later on, and I nearly set Fang on him for not warning me that if I did such a thing as knock Lady Akane into a lake, or do anything else that would cause her to scream in distress, I would bring upon myself this mountain of maternal fury. 

Miltank may be soft with fat, but when enraged they may as well be hewn from flint. I dove narrowly from her path as she nearly stampeded me in her haste to reach the lake and pull her tiny charge from the water. I knew I had little time until she was reassured that Lady Akane was safely ashore and would turn on the strangers who had infiltrated her territory.

It did comfort me later to realize that Lady Akane was in the care of such a creature. For all that I detest her class, I still hope that in her childhood, her Miltank nurse made Lady Akane feel as safe as Fang made me feel as a child. All children deserve to feel so safe.

At the time, of course, I did not feel safe, but I did see opportunity. The human guards had scattered to avoid the Miltank themselves, and now it was possible to flee the gardens. I screamed for Fang as I fled, Rock and Kenya clutched close to my chest. I was sure that Fang could escape as easily as he had reached me, but I was afraid for Kenya, who was still bleeding. I charged off into the darkness, scrambling at random through bushes and under floors, using my small stature to move easily through places that adult guards struggled to fit through. 

It was under a house, hiding from a frantic chaos of shouting guards, that I encountered Moon. I knew him to be brown, but in the moonlight he looked silver, almost like a ghost. He stared at me with his huge, dark eyes, perhaps surprised to see a human in his hiding place. His fur was damp, and I realized that he must have fled the events at the lake and hidden. I reached out a hand to him, apologizing, and immeasurably relieved when he licked my hand in a friendly fashion. Perhaps he did not realize that I was responsible for the chaos. 

When I crawled onwards, Moon followed. His nose would twitch and his ears would perk whenever other humans approached, but he would not make a sound. In fact, I had never once heard him make a sound–perhaps he had been trained not to, to be only seen but not heard. It was with his aid that I found my way beneath the homes of the rich to the well from where I had entered. When I stuck my head over the edge to peer down inside, I heard Fang’s cry echo up to me, and I felt safe again. 

When I climbed onto the edge of the well, preparing to drop down into the cold, dark water, Moon followed me, peering down with his ears flattened to his head. My arms were taken up with holding Rock and Kenya, concerned with keeping them safe as I dropped, but I managed to tuck Rock close enough on my lap to reach out and pet Moon, hoping to comfort him. I had thought of stealing him for a while, but I could not carry him down the well, and to push him down would no doubt destroy the trust I had built up between us. Kenya was still bleeding, and we were all risking sickness from my wet clothes even in the humid summer night, so I had no time to do anything but hope and drop into the darkness. I fell for only a breath before hitting the water, but it felt like far longer. I would not have dropped at all if I was not sure of Fang being below to catch me when I went under the water and help me back to the surface to breathe.

I swallowed a lungful of water when Moon dropped onto my head, knocking me back under abruptly. I am forever grateful for Fang’s level head, in this case gently headbutting me between the shoulders until I could breathe again, and then catching my clothes and Moon’s ruff in his strong jaws to drag us through the underwater tunnel we’d dug before and back to the Outer City.

 

~~~~

  
  


_ To:MrMort@tintower.fa _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ This account, if you could prove it true, Mr Minaki, would be priceless to scholars of the era. As you surmised, the Underground was only known to exist due to the occasional execution of a member, but even that information has never been taken as proof of any criminal organization. “The Underground” is a popular translation of the term used, as it conjures up a sense of danger and mystery, but in truth most reliable scholars believed the term to simply mean that the criminal was executed for something that was not, under the laws of the time, a crime, but nevertheless offended one of the nobles. Ghost previously described being beaten and thrown in a ditch merely for not getting out of the way fast enough--would that such things were a rare occurrence, but, alas, no. I wish I did not have to confirm your worst fears, but it is likely that people were often executed for no crime other than being poor in the sight of a noble. _

 

_ The existence of a vast street population could easily be inferred by any first-year student of history aware of the wealth that Kogane was known for. It was simply not possible, in that era of history, to amass the sort of luxury that the Clan Akane enjoyed without the starvation of thousands. It is fascinating indeed to read what daily life was for those on the wrong side of the staggering wealth gap, and even more intriguing is that, while Ghost does indeed describe the Underground as a loose collection of beggars and thieves, they  _ also  _ make mention of the existence of organized crime, which those homeless who survived their childhood might graduate to. Ghost mentions gambling, alcohol and brothels--such rings are surely the ancestors of the pervasive yakuza groups of the early modern era. Throughout history, where such things are criminalized instead of regulated, criminals will still supply them. _

 

_ Life inside of the Inner City is better documented, thanks to recovered inventory lists describing the rich objects and clothes that Ghost complains at length about! Ghost observes fishing boats, but failed to realize that Kogane was also a trading port. The vast farmlands that Kogane’s armies guarded offered them huge amounts of crops to trade, as well as such things as Mareep wool, Caterpie silk and, of course, Miltank milk. We may have a closer estimate of the time that Ghost lived, because a Miltank who had once been Lady Akane’s nursemaid was described as defending her lady valiantly during the warfare between Clan Akane and the Dragon Clan. It may not be the same Lady Akane--Miltank nursemaids were, while not common, not entirely unknown when a noble lady died in childbirth. It is most likely not the last Lady Akane--while she lost her mother in childbirth and her father in early childhood, being raised and defended by a Miltank, her father’s only brother predeceased him by a matter of days, dying in the fighting on the Eastern Front alongside his only son. She had several blood aunts and thus several uncles-by-marriage, but none who would have had any rights over the late lord’s child. This may be her mother or grandmother, as prior to the rise of the Dragon Empire, Kogane went through long periods with the nobility squabbling over child rulers, failing to pay attention to the steadily deteriorating condition of Kogane’s far borders, or the rapidly rising poverty rates under their noses. For such reasons do empires fall.  _

 

_ If only Ghost had understood the value of the things they heard every day! They dismissed not only the complex politics of the Inner City, but much of the equally valuable minutiae of life in the Outer City. Precisely which of Kogane’s wealth of raw materials were they trading at the ports for gold and silver, paints and dyes? From where, exactly, did these things come? Dock records are long lost, having not been stored in the Inner City, and while the inventories of the great houses occasionally made mention of where particularly valuable pieces originated, so little is known about the ocean trade of the time and Ghost’s account sheds no further light. What I wouldn’t give not to just read their account, but to walk the city with them, just for a day! Although I suppose I would do a rather poorer job of playing the part of a servant child.  _

 

_ It is deeply interesting that Ghost makes mention of not only deliberately disguising in many different roles, male and female, but even practicing changing their voice and behaviour to do so. More than that, they speak as if they are continuing to disguise at whatever time they are telling this story. This, combined with the careful way that they have avoided revealing their true name or gender, suggests that they may have been one of the early ninja, who despite dramatic notions perpetuated by the theatre, film and the Fuchsia clan, had neither a “costume” nor supernatural powers of stealth. They most frequently simply walked in and out of their targets’ homes disguised as servants, taking on a status that would be more invisible to their target than any shadow. I must confess that I’ve often suspect that the Fuchsia clan perpetuates the theatrical notions of what a ninja is to prevent people thinking of the truth and using more effective security precautions… but I spend too much time with my head in the past and forget what era we live in now! _

 

_ One of my assistants mentioned that she once trained at your gym--a miss Taeko, most interested in Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres? She asked me to send you her best wishes and congratulations to you and your husband on your second anniversary. Let me add my own congratulations, and dearest hopes that the two of you may be fortunate enough to see many more together.  _

 

_ Yours, _

_ Professor E. Reiton. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moana, Mahina and Ichigo are all named after students of mine. Moana and Mahina are avid dancers and Moana has been known to employ interpretive dance when she doesn’t know a word in English. They’re all great. 
> 
> As for the Miltank, I’ve never had trouble with it before and didn’t start now. Fang was still pretty overleveled and handled things pretty well. He probably could’ve solo’d Whitney, but I decided to take the Clefairy with Kenya to keep Fang fresh for the Miltank, and Kenya only barely won the fight. It was close. But I made it out with my team intact, and got an Eevee to boot… this isn’t my Game Corner acquisition, for what it’s worth, I got him from Bill. Kenya is actually what made me think of making the protagonist run a thief, as to keep her you genuinely have to steal her--you get her for a delivery sidequest and you can opt to not deliver her and the letter she’s holding. 
> 
> Pokemon--4  
> Deaths--0
> 
> Name: Fang. Species: Croconaw.  
> Name: Rock. Species: Togepi.   
> Name: Kenya. Species: Spearow.  
> Name: Moon. Species: Eevee.


	4. Fragments 4a-4h

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fang the Croconaw, Rock the Togepi, Kenya the Spearow, Moon the Eevee

_ To: ereiton@goldenrodu.edu _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Professor, _

 

_ Thank you to both you and Taeko for your kind words! How is her research continuing? Has she had a chance to explore the Seafoam Islands yet? Before Kanto re-opened, I recall her complaining that she would never get to visit the islands long rumoured to be Articuno’s favourite haunts… although, I do remember hearing that a catastrophic volcanic eruption on Cinnabar had affected all of the islands and coastal settlements for miles, so for all I know those islands have sunk beneath the sea now. I hope not, for Taeko’s sake. _

 

_ It was fascinating to read your explanation of what we do know about Kogane and how, and now I am curious about the historical record as it pertains to what Ghost describes in this scroll, mostly focused on the Golden Temple. I admit to taking extra interest in this scroll myself, as the Golden Temple is the predecessor to the Bell Tower that I once lived and studied in myself! The exact location of the original Golden Temple has been long lost, though some of the oldest records in the Bell Tower’s archives are descriptions of it being destroyed by “hubris and foolish ignorance”, sending the surviving nuns fleeing further down into the forests, where Ecruteak now stands. Similarly, I have never before seen record of the Silver Temple, though I suspect some must exist… _

 

_ Well, with the information I got from these scrolls, I may go for a hike this weekend and try to figure out where the Golden Temple actually was! Probably there will be nothing left to find at all--history well remembers the destruction of the Brass Tower and most of Ecruteak as a result of hubris of the scientific variety in the Mid-Modern Era, viewable proof that the rage of gods is neither subtle nor restrained. Nevertheless, a good hike is the perfect thing to clear the head. Eusine and I may make a weekend of it. People are always surprised when he mentions that he likes hiking, but he’s really very practical about it. His hiking suit is extra-durable and waterproof, and he has a hiking cape that folds out into a tent.  _

 

_ Give my best to Taeko, and all of your students! _

 

_ Sincerely, _

_ Mortimer Minaki _

 

_ ~~~~  _

 

We made immediately to leave, without even saying goodbye. Punishment would be sought for what happened at the lake, but punishment would also be sought for the thefts of Moon and Kenya. Kenya was especially dangerous. The Storyteller explained that it was in the best interests of Lady Akane’s traitor uncle to destroy us, Kenya, and the letter all, so as to leave no evidence to his crimes. He also explained, in a state of deep despondency, that such evidence was of no use to us. Lady Akane’s lord uncle was of too high a rank. The Storyteller might have been able to expose a servant or a guard, but none would take the word of a disgraced entertainer over a distinguished noble. At most, he could sow some suspicion at the cost of his life, and he was unwilling to make that sacrifice. So, I confess, was I. I contented myself with remembering how terrible Lady Akane’s nursemaid Miltank was and agreed to leave the city with the Storyteller.

 

He wanted to buy passage out via the north wall from the gangs who ran many quarters of the city there, and he wanted to buy such passage by selling them Moon and Kenya. He argued that we immediately identified ourselves as the thieves by keeping them close, especially Moon, for while Spearow were common creatures, Eevee--according to him, what Moon was--were rarer. I refused, however. They had come trust me, and I could not stomach the thought of selling them to gangsters who might decide, as Storyteller had, that they were a liability. What if they did not sell or use Kenya as a spy, but as lunch, like a common Pidgey? What if they did not sell Moon as a pet but skinned him for his soft pelt?

 

The Storyteller agreed in the end, but I think he was not so much swayed by the rationale of my arguments or concern for Moon and Kenya as he was by concern for his own life. As Lady Akane’s upset could bring down the wrath of her Miltank, mine could unleash Fang’s jaws, and at this time he was not only taller than me, but approaching the Storyteller in height. He seemed to stretch as he grew, growing leaner and rougher every day. At this time, I still thought of Fang as my protector, my safety, and at the same time the little Pokemon I had stolen as a baby. I did not realize quite how terrifying he was for others to look upon.

 

Yet still, the Storyteller looked upon him and saw opportunity. With no further chance to redeem himself in Kogane, he described a temple up north where he had once lived and had often thought of returning to, a safe place where they prayed to mighty gods. The land between was often ravaged by war and dangerous to travel, but now, if he could remain in my favour and, thus, in Fang’s, he saw a chance to travel with powerful protection. 

 

Though he had hoped to find a way back into the favour of the Inner City, the Storyteller had nevertheless prepared to flee. His pack was enough to hide both Moon and Kenya, too injured to fly. I did not think he would run away with them. Where would he go? Fang and I were his only chance. I kept Rock close to me, as ever, and the two of us followed Fang as he swam out into the bay, leading us under ships and out past the guard outposts lined with archers. 

 

I had not seen much of the sea while I lived in the city, for the horizon was often too clogged with ships. It was a lake, like the mountain lakes near where I had grown up, or so I thought at the time. The salt in the water, so different from the river that had carried me in to Kogane, startled me as it stung at my eyes, and I could do nothing but shut them tight, cling to Fang’s tail, and trust him, as ever, to guide me to safety.

 

~~~~

 

As we travelled into the hills north of Kogane, I fully understood why the Storyteller had been afraid to travel alone, even if he risked death by remaining in Kogane. The sun had barely cleared the horizon when we were first attacked.

 

When we came ashore again, the summer sun, hot even so early in the morning, we dried our clothes quickly, but left them stiff with salt. We followed the shore until we found another river, where we could shelter under the trees along the bank and wash the salt from our clothes and clean the wound in Kenya’s wing. The Storyteller had spare clothes in his pack. They were too big for me, but I was close to the age where I would be too old to go without, so I swaddled myself in a shirt like a blanket. Kenya’s wound was already healing, though she could not fly yet, so she rested on the ground with Rock cooing to her gently. Moon rested by the water’s edge where the running water could cool his heavy fur and he could chatter to Fang, relaxing just under the surface. While we waited for our clothes to dry, I felt my eyes drifting shut. We soon established a habit of sleeping in the shade during the daytime and moving at night when it was not so hot, but at the time I was simply so exhausted from the night’s exertions that I could not keep my eyes open. 

 

Frantic yelps from Moon and shrieks from Rock and Kenya awoke me. There were six of them, and afterwards I saw that the armour they wore was ill-fitting, already torn and bloodstained before Fang rose from the river and set upon them. Their weapons were broken swords and farming tools, and these merely scraped off of Fang’s thickening hide rather than injuring him as the swords of the men in the cave had. The Storyteller said that they had likely taken their weapons and armour from battlefields, that they had not been soldiers but farmers, that they had lost everything as I had. Their despair and anger had not, like me, driven then to light-fingered theft but robbery and murder, dragging them so low that they felt a man travelling only with, apparently, small Pokemon and a child, was an acceptable target. Perhaps that was how they had so far, slaying only easy targets, for they had no skill at all, not like the soldiers that Fang had fought before, and the only ones to survive were those who fled. 

 

I suggested burning them, but the Storyteller refused to light a fire, not with the heat already great and it not even yet midday. Full summer was rising upon us, and a fire would be agonizing to bear for as long as it took to fully burn the bodies, to say nothing of the fact that he had no wish to honour bandits. Perhaps they had been decent men once, normal people who had lost their families and themselves, but they had made the choice not just to steal but to murder to preserve their own lives. We were to encounter many bandits in the ravaged lands north of Kogane, and those who did not flee we left rotting, almost able to see their ghosts rising in the shimmering heat. We passed through so many destroyed villages, too, the bloody swathes of so many old battlefields stinking so heavily of rot that we had to travel quite far out of our way to pass by them upwind. The northern hills must have been awash in a sea of ghosts, and we added drops to that ocean. 

 

I never ordered Fang to kill, but nor did I ever attempt to stop him. In truth, I did not even command him. He had decided that he would protect me and he did so as he saw fit, and I only stood back, holding Rock, allowing Moon to hide behind my legs, trusting Fang to keep us safe. He always did. I did not understand why the Storyteller was always so afraid. 

 

Kenya’s wing healed and she would scout ahead, flying back to us if she saw humans coming towards us. Sometimes she would simply sit on my shoulder and chirp, meaning that those who approached carried no weapons, were often mere refugees seeking Kogane and the hopes of safety within its walls. We would wish them well and let them go, knowing that there were no bandits left in our wake to deter them. When she came back shrieking, bandits were coming, and in time they would come in larger numbers, forewarned by one who had fled a previous fight that a monster was travelling up the river. Kenya would join Fang in the fighting, her sharp beak and talons ripping the throats from men’s necks and the eyes from their heads. 

 

In the villages, at least, I insisted on burning the bodies, even if our clothes were soaked to dripping with sweat by the time we finished. Some had already been charred or rotted to skeletons, or near enough, though I found these less frightening than those still soft with rot, which sometimes burst in your hands as you moved them. They, at least, deserved rest if we could bring it to them. The Storyteller would rather move, but he conceded when I became sufficiently upset, because then Fang would become agitated. Looking back, I think of how terrified he must have been. He had fled his fate in Kogane, unable to prove his innocence, into a warland, where his life depended on the protection of a monster who answered not to him but to the whims of a child who, at the time, still looked up to him as a teacher. I saw how powerful Fang was becoming every day, but I did not yet understand how little I could control him. 

 

~~~~

 

When I first saw the Golden Temple, I was confused. I thought that the glow I saw at the top of the hill, a hill only barely too small to be a mountain, was the rising sun, but then I saw the true sun rising to the east, the light catching on the temple’s roof and causing the glow. When we got close enough, I saw that the temple was built of thick, old wood  so dark it was almost black, but was roofed in pure, shimmering gold. I could not imagine how it had not yet been robbed, for what bandit cared for the gods? 

 

This, though, was not a small temple like the one in Fort Kikyou, nor the tiny shrines dotted around Kogane. This was built by something other than humans, I was sure, for it was simply too big. The outer walls were so high that it looked for all the world like a castle, a fortress, yet the gates were open wide. Inside, huge, flat slabs of stone led us to steps as long as a city street and as tall as I. Perhaps the sizes are exaggerated by my child’s memory, but I recall that I truly struggled to climb them. I had to hand Rock to Fang so that I had both hands to haul myself up, Fang easily able to scramble up with his longer limbs, the Storyteller carrying Moon under one arm as he climbed. At the top hung a rope thicker than my arm, from which hung a huge bell. The Storyteller had to use both hands to ring it. He then clapped his hands together and bowed deeply to the closed temple doors, made of the same dark wood at the walls, appearing covered in scratches. I imitated him, having not been to such a temple before, but knowing surely that I had no wish to anger whatever might live within. 

 

I asked why we were waiting, curious if he had rung the bell in order to wake the god inside. This made the Storyteller laugh, and I recall being startled by the sound because it had been some time since I had heard it. He advised me that it was dangerous and deadly to seek out the gods, and that in any case it would take more than a bell to raise the god of this temple, or so they said. It was not a god whose attention he wished to draw. It took only a handful of breaths for the priest to appear, and when he did, the Storyteller’s expression lit up like the sun.

 

Father Matsuba was ever a gentle man from the moment that I met him. He greeted us with open arms and broad smiles, asking me nothing but my name, the names of my Pokemon and if we were hungry from our journey. I did not get to say a word to the last question before he laughed, having seen all he needed to know from my expression at the prospect of food, and led us around the walkway on the exterior of the temple. 

 

To the back were smaller, wooden staircases for humans that led into the temple gardens. They were simple, mostly broad, flat stones laid out in paths with bushes and trees in between carefully tended by a number of sisters of the temple, many of them the age of grandmothers. There was a orchard, heavy with summer berries, and Father Matsuba led us among the trees, collecting together those berries which were, today, perfectly ripe. He talked of how all things have their perfect time, and that morning was the perfect time for a bowl of fresh berries. After the hell we had passed through below, it seemed that we had finally reached paradise.

 

~~~~

 

The sun was at its peak and I was passing a very pleasant afternoon in the garden, napping under a tree with Rock in my arms, when Moon began yipping excitedly. When I looked to him, he was bouncing on the spot, looking towards the west. He had drawn the attention of Fang, who had been napping next to me, and Kenya, who had been arguing with Pidgey up in the trees. 

 

When I stood, seeking to know what had Moon so excited, I nearly cried out in shock. A woman had appeared there, as if she had dropped from the sky, like no woman I had ever seen. Her hair was piled high and decorated like a woman’s, her face painted, but from the neck below, she was a warrior. She wore armour of a finery known only to war-kings and their highest generals, and she bore a staff as tall as she with a long, sharp blade on the end. There were no emblems on her armour, but in her hair were decorations of silver and pink. 

 

At her side was a four-legged Pokemon, slender and pale purple, with large ears, a forked tail and a small red jewel set between its large, deep eyes. Its forked tail was stood up straight, vibrating slightly and glowing. It looked calmly down its nose as Moon ran up to it, yapping happily, then leaned down and licked his ears gently. 

 

Then the gentle Pokemon looked at me, and I found myself crying.

 

It is hard now to state or explain the strength of the feeling that stole over me when I met that creature’s eyes. I believe she meant only to share with me Moon’s happiness, but the feeling that struck me was so akin to my joy on first seeing Reiko in Fort Kikyou that every emotion that followed descended upon me at once. I felt again, as if it were brand new, the joy of seeing Reiko, the grief of losing my village and my father and sister and mother, the despondency of being alone, the fear of being hunted. 

 

The Storyteller and Father Matsuba found me doubled over, clutching Rock and wailing helplessly. I also realized later that Father Matsuba had put himself before Fang, who had seen only that I was crying at the feet of this woman and deemed her a threat. It was only later that I could appreciate how he could even achieve such a thing as to make Fang cower.

 

When my crying settled, the world felt raw and wavering. I felt barely any surprise, nor anything at all, in truth, when the woman calmly prophesized that the Golden Temple would be attacked at sundown by a large force of bandits seeking to eliminate the monster that had a torn a bloody swathe through their comrades along the northlands. Perhaps I would have been afraid, had I had a thought to spare to it, but as I was to see, I had no need to be. I had seen the grandeur of the Golden Temple and felt the kindness of its caretakers, but now I was to learn of the beauty of the Silver Temple and bear witness to the ferocity of its guardians, known only as the Sisterhood.

 

~~~~

 

I was frightened when I heard that bandits were coming. Not for myself, because I had absolute faith in Fang to protect me. But could he protect me, and the Storyteller, and Father Matsuba, and all of the priestesses?

 

Protect them from a danger which we had brought down on them?

 

But Father Matsuba was unconcerned, and so was the Storyteller, who looked more relaxed than I had ever seen him. They reminded me that the Sister had forseen the bandits coming at sundown, and that was many hours away yet. As I was to learn, whenever threat approached the temples, the Sister of Foresight would know it long in advance. 

 

There were eight sisters, or rather I am sure there still are. I cannot imagine that either the Silver or Golden temples fell in the war. I saw all eight when they went to prepare, an hour before sundown. They came to the Golden Temple through a small gate, on the other side of which was nothing but a vast ravine that spanned the gap between two tall, steep mountains. The Sisters crossed the thin rope bridge that covered the gap as if strolling down the broadest street in Kogane, their war-Pokemon following with ease. They were a rainbow of colours, one appearing to be made partly of leaves, one of ice, one covered in needles, one trailing ribbons. Each was different from the rest, yet all of them looked the same, in a way. They were all roughly the same size, each ran lightly on four legs, each had two long ears and two large, dark eyes, and each one greeted Moon with an affectionate nuzzle. Moon himself grew more delighted with each new Pokemon. I wondered if he had seen them before, or simply knew their forms and scents as his own. The Storyteller explained to me that there were many Eevee in the Silver Temple, raised and trained by the Sisters. Eevee is a blessed Pokemon that can have many different forms, and each Sister partnered with a different one.

 

The Sister of Water laid in wait by a spring that came forth from the mountain near the path up to the temple, which the bandits would surely pass. The Sister of Ice waited with her, her powers the weakest in the summer sun, but as Father Matsuba explained, ice and snow were nothing but cold water. The Sister of Flames waited further down, where the water was further away. The Sister of Storms waited between the temple and the spring, for any who passed the Sisters of Water and Ice would surely be soaked and the water would draw her partner’s lightning to them. The Sister of Leaves strolled through the trees with impunity, knowing that her partner could command them easily. The Sister of Foresight stood at the temple gates, paired with the Sister of the Moon, to hold the final line but also to foresee any shift in the flow of battle and send warnings to the sisters below. They did this with the aid of the Sister of Dreams, who practically danced up and down the path. Her war-Pokemon was delicate and pink and adorned with flowing ribbons, yet there was something in its eyes that unsettled me, even as it smiled and danced by its priestess’ side. 

 

Then they came, at sundown, as forseen. Father Matsuba asked that I stay back, keep Fang and Kenya back, and let the Sisters do their work. We were unnecessary. The Sisters were priestesses, but they were also onna-bugeisha, trained with the dedication of the greatest general to dispatch those who would defile sacred ground without mercy. Men burned, or were sliced to ribbons by flying leaves, or were blasted clear off the mountain by jets of water, or speared by shards of ice, or struck by bolts of lightning. I had scarce seen fighting so savage. The Sisters barely had to put their blades to work, so powerful were their war-Pokemon, yet when they did, they were so swift and precise that blood did not stain their blades. The one who struck most, it seemed, was the Sister of Dreams. The ribbons adorning her war-Pokemon were alive, reaching out to ensnare men as they fled the others, causing them to slow as a strange peacefulness overtook their features, dropping their weapons with smiles. As soon as they did, the Sister or her war-Pokemon would take their head.

 

I saw all of this from a watch-house over the walls of the Golden Temple, though according to Father Matsuba, thanks to their partnership with the Silver Temple and the skills of the Sister of Foresight, the Golden Temple had no need for its own soldiers and the watch-house was for little but watching the Sisters at work. Many of the elderly priestesses did so, revealing to me that they had all once been Sisters of the Silver Temple, retiring to the Golden Temple when their partner War-Pokemon died or they grew too old to fight. 

The Sister of Foresight turned and began to walk back to her temple before the last man was dead, but that she left at all was a clear sign that there was nothing more to see.

 

~~~~

 

That summer in the Golden Temple was a fine one. The heat was high, but so were the temple’s walls and trees, making cool shade plentiful. If ever danger approached, the Sister of Foresight would know it, and the Sisterhood would dispatch it, dropping the remnants into the ravines below. We spent our days tending the Golden Temple’s gardens, both the sparse ornamental gardens and the fruitful groves of berries and paddies of grain. It was not unlike the farm on which I had grown up, with the exception of the prayers. At dawn, the Sisterhood would join us to pray in front of the doors of the Golden Temple. At sunset, we would travel to the Silver Temple to pray at their doors.

 

The Silver Temple perched on the side of the peak on the other side of the ravine, partially built into the mountain itself. The path to it was not a path at all but a bridge that connected a door at the back of the Golden Temple to a similar door in the Silver Temple, and when I first saw this bridge, I thought it to be a joke or trap. Such a long rope bridge, with no planks, only carefully knotted rope threading its way across the ravine. It seemed impossible to me that a person could cross it without falling to their death, even after watching several of the elderly priestesses traverse it with ease. Some of the Silver Guardians came to lead Moon across, helping him step lightly across the ropes, but I knew that I was much heavier than Moon and I was still afraid. I crossed several times with Rock under one arm, clutching Father Matsuba’s arm like a child as he led me gently across the ropes. Over time I became capable of crossing the bridge alone, but I was never comfortable with looking down. I could not bear the depth of the ravine below. Fang alone remained behind each day, too great in weight and bulk to cross the bridge. 

 

My days settled into routine. Awake, pray, breakfast, tend gardens, take some time to relax and play with my Pokemon, pray, dinner, sleep. Sometimes I listened to the Storyteller tell me more stories, about lands he’d been to, people he’d met, myths and legends from across the seas. Father Matsuba told me of Ho-oh and Lugia, the Dawn and the Dusk. He told me that there must be rain for a rainbow to be seen, and that all ill things are a prelude to better times. While staying there, I believed it. I think I could have stayed there forever. The Sisters, though often odd, were kind, and on the occasions that I braved the bridge to visit them, taught me about the many forms that Moon might one day take and how to fight with the naginata. The elderly priestesses doted on me like a flock of grandmothers, always pushing me to eat just a little more, that a growing child needed good food. The Storyteller had always been kind, in his way, but now I sensed that he was kind because he wished to be, not because he sought to gain anything from me. He shared Father Matsuba’s quarters of nights, and the two were as happy as any husband and wife I had ever known, or perhaps happier than most. It felt most like being part of a family again as they took care of me, I took care of Rock and Moon. Kenya and Fang took care of themselves well, Kenya roosting in the trees, Fang mostly relaxing in the pond, his long, blue body stretching to almost its full length. Even the threat of bandits and armies became nothing, not with the Sisterhood protecting us, and within the temple, Ho-oh.

 

What I had taken for scratches on the Golden Temple doors, when I first arrived, transpired to be a carving. At sunrise, the light fell on the doors at such an angle that a brilliant mural of Ho-oh could be seen, and it was this that we prayed to each morning. The interior of the temple itself was the only space which was forbidden to me. Father Matsuba alone went inside every day to replace the flowers within and sweep the floors, and he cautioned me never to enter. He told me that within, Ho-oh slept in its great nest, and would perceive any but the High Priest as a threat. Father Matsuba’s descriptions of Ho-oh melting the flesh from my bones in a rage were so vivid that I never dared peek within.

 

I sometimes dream of the life I might have lived there. Sometimes I imagine that if I go back, I might meet another version of myself, living there still. Perhaps that one is at peace. That one never saw Kamon again, as I did one day, returning from the Silver Temple at dusk. I was bold, then, bounding ahead to show off my bravery by walking across the bridge alone, Rock laughing in my arms. It was perfect twilight, the air smooth and warm, the browning leaves of the trees on the mountainsides lit up by the sunset like a sea of golden flame, over which Kenya lazily circled. But then she shrieked, and I froze, old instincts returning to me. It was the shriek of danger. 

 

That was when I saw him, running from the Golden Temple. He stumbled and fell as soon as he set foot on the bridge, not realizing how perilous it was, and then Fang was upon him, leaping with such force that ropes snapped and we were all tipped into the ravine below.

 

~~~~

 

It was a miracle that I survived, a miracle named Kenya. I heard her screech as I fell, but what could a tiny bird like her do to save me?

 

A tiny bird could do nothing, but the talons that gripped my shoulders were not those of a bird that could sit on my shoulders. I looked up to see light-brown wings, each longer than my arms, flapping frantically as Kenya sought to slow my fall, her now spindly pink beak and long neck stuck up in the sky in effort. She was bigger now, a great deal so, clearly stronger, but she was not quite big or strong enough to pull me upwards. All she could do was lower me carefully down in to the ravine. Once comfortable that she would not drop me, I dared to look down.

 

Kenya was lowering me into a sea of bones.

 

I screamed and Kenya nearly dropped me in fright. I was near enough to see Rattata picking over the bodies, all those who had threatened the Temples and faced the Sisterhood. I did not want to be set down in that pit of the unhappy dead, not with the light dying so fast. But there was nowhere else for Kenya to put me and nothing I could do but to watch as I slowly descended into this hell.

 

There was nowhere I could put my feet without hearing the crunch of bone or, worse, feel soft skin slip slickly from the rotten flesh beneath. There is much of this time that I can only remember vaguely, filling in my patchy recollections with deductions of what feels right, seems most likely, yet this I remember more vividly than I would like, for it is where I visit in nightmares. I had no desire to see or hear anything around me, to do anything but stop my eyes and ears and pretend I was elsewhere, but nor did I wish to stay. I could hear the sound of rushing water and felt drawn towards it. I remembered the Storyteller’s words, that humans are a type of water Pokemon. There were bones about my ankles, but no water. If the river I could hear had a way out of the ravine, so too did I. So I had to move, staring at the horrors beneath my feet so as to place my feet safely, unable to cover my ears to the sounds because I had to hold tight onto Rock. I kept his face pressed to my chest so that he could not see. With Kenya overhead, at least, I felt safe that none of the scavenging Rattata would attack me, but if night fell and ghosts rose, what could she do against those?

 

The river was a thread of hope. When I reached it, I jumped in. I should not do this, jump into a river that you do not know. Water may appear placid, but terrifying currents may be hidden barely beneath the surface. This is another way that humans are like water. But at this time, I was lucky. The water was just deep enough to submerge me and did not push me harder than I could push back, so I submerged for as long as I dared, hoping for the water to make me feel clean again. When I felt Rock tapping my arms, I surfaced,  forging to shallower waters that came only to my waist, and when I did, I saw Kamon.

 

He was filthy, bloody, clutching one arm that was so broken that I could see the bone jutting from the flesh. He was following the river, like I was, seeking escape just like me. We stared at each other in shock for what felt like forever. I was fighting not to show my fear, to show only rage and defiance.

 

I did not realize how the colour had drained from his face until he dropped to his knees, the water splashing around his chest, and began to beg for his life.

 

~~~~

 

Would I have been frightened of myself? As a child, I had no knowledge to view my life from the outside, but recalling it now, I can see why Kamon had grown to believe that I was a vengeful ghost. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that he recalled at all that I was the child who his soldiers threw to the ground. Perhaps he only remembered that there had been a child and assumed. First a child had stolen his war-Pokemon, then returned from a fall into a cursed cave, and now not only returned from vanishing into an icy river but, on the way, I learned, had destroyed a lesser ghost that he had captured and compelled to obey him with a talisman and killed a great many of his men, both in Azalea and scouting parties in the northern warlands. And now, when he had come alone to pray, the war-Pokemon I had stolen, who had slaughtered his men and left a trail of corpses behind, had fallen upon him and dragged him into this Hell where I stood.

 

He begged my forgiveness, thinking his soldiers had killed me that day and my ghost was plaguing him, pleaded that this was not his war and he was only following his father, that he would do better to protect the common folk who were being slaughtered if only I would let him go free. It saddens me to think of his desperate fear now, but as a child it only confused me. I could not understand how a war-king, even the son of one, could be afraid of me. I was the one who was afraid, the one who was weak. And yet, for the first time I could understand his words when he spoke to me, and in them I was shocked beyond reckoning to hear fear and desperation. I had not known that war-kings could feel such things.

 

Then he was yanked down, under the water which came up to my waist and his knees. He appeared a moment later, scrambling for the banks of the river, when Fang lunged back out and dragged him back under.

 

Kamon had survived the fall without Kenya to carry him. Of course Fang would, Fang, who might once have fought for Kamon, who now knew him as an enemy and reacted as such. I screamed at Fang to stop, for Kamon was less than a threat now. I ran to where the water was bubbling red and grabbed at Fang’s huge jaws shoulders, trying to drag him away. I may as well have tried to move a mountain with my hands. I had never asked him to stop before, so why should he guess that I ever would?

 

He only paused in savaging Kamon when I backed away, screaming. He stopped to look up, to see if something else had attacked me, and I turned, running, screaming at the top of my lungs, hoping he would follow. I ran up along the riverbanks, tripping on bones and slipping on rotten flesh, and ran until the valley began to open up into broad plains. Rock clutched to my chest, Kenya shrieking over my head, I ran and ran without looking back. I had never before feared that Fang would hurt me, yet why else would I be so afraid to look back and see him following? 

 

I do not know how far Fang followed me, or even if he did, but when I tripped over a low line of boulders that seemed to mark a boundary between the plains and a farming field and saw behind, there was not a hint of blue in sight. 

~~~~

 

_ To:MrMort@tintower.fa _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Mr Minaki, _

 

_ Ahh, how the tables have turned! Now you are the expert to whom I must defer! What is most fascinating about the Golden Temple, to me, is that I have never heard of it before. You are surely aware, having formerly trained at the Bell Tower, that many of its archives are not open to public or even academic perusal? Should you choose to publish this translation, with or without verification, it will be the first time the world at large will have any documentation on the matter. _

 

_ Of course, this does suit you well if this is an exceedingly patient fabrication, as how can I judge the veracity of texts I cannot read, whether because they are untranslatable or hidden away? The Silver Temple and Sisterhood, too, are nothing I can find described in any contemporary texts. Of course, as described here, they leave no survivors to tell of them, but if the walls and roofs were truly coated in gold and silver, there must have been a great deal of trade and work gone into building such places, work that left no surviving record at all… _

 

_ So much of this particular fragment deals so heavily in Ghost’s own inner life, and the details of temples whose very existence I cannot verify, that it is difficult for me to give any comment on it at all. It is true that the plains north of Kogane were described by dragon clan scholars as empty, yet fertile, forming the core of the bountiful farmlands that fed the expansion of their empire, and that many of them theorized that the fertility was due to the many old battlefields and mass graves left over from the warring clans.  _

 

_ I am afraid, however, that as it stands, this fragment stands as something of a mark against your credibility, Mr Minaki, as it is less verifiable or reliable than anything before save the description of meeting Celebi. I admit that I wish dearly for these translations to be real, so I do hope that your next delivery is able to restore my faith! Taeko certainly seems to believe you incapable of lying to such a degree. _

 

_ I hope that you and your husband enjoyed your hiking trip, and I look forward to hearing from you again! _

 

_ Sincerely, E. Reiton _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While realizing you have to steal Kenya to keep her is what inspired me to do the fic, I resisted the idea of starting a new story for a while before finally caving when the idea of turning the Kimono Girls into Onna-Bugeisha hit me. I’m kind of a sucker for Onna-Bugeisha, especially the whole thing with the personal ten-inch daggers (ancient warrior women had a refreshingly direct approach to dealing with abusive husbands). Which led, ultimately, to this.
> 
> There are a great many kinds of Japanese spirit, often falling under the banner name of “yurei”, formed from the grief, despair or rage of the dead, particularly those who were not properly buried, died violently or died innocently (particularly children and pregnant women). Some of these yurei are the accumulated vengeance of many dead, and while not all are hostile--some are actually protectors of their families--others will haunt their killers or those who have drawn their ire, and rather than directly kill them, will simply torment them and their households, sometimes for generations. It also seems to be a common feature in Japanese ghost stories that the more powerless a person was in life, and the more cruelly mistreated they were, the more powerful and horrifying their yurei. The most famous Japanese ghost stories are almost all about the deaths of abused wives, daughters and servant girls. All this makes it plausible that Kamon would grow to assume that this strange child who continually appears to torment and kill his men would be a vengeful spirit, or a conglomeration of many.


	5. Extras

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lost scraps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided it was important to put these in before Scroll 5 so they can be read together. They were written for the 2018 Pride Create-A-Thon for the days Genderfluid and Asexual, respectively.
> 
> Scroll 5 is on its way!

{Fragment ?????}

 

_ This fragment is an aside that I have so far been unable to place in the chronology of the Scrolls, though given its content, its placement may be irrelevant to the overall narrative that Ghost was creating. Take it as you will.  _

 

_ ~M. M. _

 

~~~

 

I have lived so much of my life inhabiting crafted personas, moving as a man or woman as needs be, sometimes I think that one day I will forget my true name and sex. I will spend too long as the tradesman Kouta, the Lady Rino, the housemaid Mihiro, the artist Haruto, and I will one day go to take off the mask and find nothing left underneath. 

 

I wonder if it would even matter. We are none of us our true selves when we are around others. Merely existing around other people is a performance. Men carry themselves differently around men than they do around women, while women walk differently when passing men to whom they are attracted as opposed to men they despise. No man speaks to his superior officer as he would to his wife, and no woman speaks to her friends the way she would to her husband. We create one self to show to our family, another to our friends, yet another for our lovers. Who we are to our children surely haunts us all. Do any of us know our true selves?

 

Perhaps, sometimes, when I have a choice in disguises, there is a preference. Some masks are more comfortable than others. Sometimes the woman’s walk comes easier than a man’s expressions, and sometimes a man’s speech feels truer than a woman’s touch. I am a mystery even to myself. Perhaps that is a success, given what I have made of my life. 

 

If I am ever only myself, surely it is with my Pokemon. They have no human social values. I need perform nothing to them. How I wish I could be so free with you. Once I had hoped I could be, until I first saw you and understood--

 

~~~

 

_ The damage to this fragment that separated it from the rest has also rendered the rest of it unreadable. This obviously sheds no light on the mystery on Ghost’s identity, though it may shed some light on why it is a mystery. Most interesting, to me, was the hardest part to translate because I had not, at this point, encountered it; a second-person pronoun, and a specific one at that, directed to a single person, not plural, and a close person at that. These are not stories being thrown out to history’s whims. This story was for a specific person.  _

 

_ I can only hope that further work translating the rest of the scrolls will shed more light on the identity of the addressee, and through them, something concrete on the Ghost themself. _

 

{An Unwritten Scroll}

  
  
  


The Watcher asks me, sometimes, if that now that I am full grown, I will leave to seek a mate. She seems to understand that I will not, for I have been born and bred to fight and defend my human and it is a duty that I enjoy and take pride in. Less does she understand that I have no desires otherwise. It seems to me that the purpose of finding a mate is to create and rear children. I already have my human, who seemed so large when we first met and now I see to be so small and so, so fragile. I have also the Little One, filled with a power I do not yet understand, yet who remains small and content to be in my human’s arms. They have neither mother or father, but they have me.

 

I will protect them, always. I need nothing else than that. 


	6. Fragments 5a-5l

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fang the Feraligatr, Rock the Togepi, Kenya the Fearow, Moon the Eevee

_ To: ereiton@goldenrodu.edu _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Professor, _

 

_ I’m actually surprised to hear about your limited access to the Bell Tower’s archives, as when I was an acolyte there, access was allowed with supervision--that’s how Eusine and I met! I’ve actually been in to ask, and found out that the archives were locked down only in recent years, with outsiders only getting access with permission from a very small and specific list of individuals. I understand that this is frustrating you, as a scholar, and unfortunately, I can only frustrate you further on this score--the reason for the archives being shut down is also privileged, and I’m afraid I can’t share it with you. If you know the writings of the prophet Chronos well, you might have some idea, but there really isn’t more that I can say at this time. Would that it were otherwise. _

 

_ I believe this section of the scrolls may be on firmer historical ground, however, and it’s noticeably more complete than the previous scrolls, if more fragmented. I believe I have the fragments in the correct order, though Ghost’s recollections don’t themselves seem to be linear. This one does reveal some interesting personal details about Ghost, and also the tantalizing possibility that they do exist on the historical record after all! Eusine and I have been on an extended hiking trip so I haven’t had a chance to do my own research into the matter. We’re compiling a list of theories about where the Golden and Silver Temples might’ve been. The landscape’s changed so much that there might be nothing left to find, but the weather’s been fine and we’re enjoying ourselves. _

 

_ Sincerely,  _

_ Mortimer Minaki _

 

~~~~~

 

I spent a cold, sleepless night huddled under the shelter of Kenya’s wings by the rocks. I cannot remember whether I feared that Fang would find me or hoped for it. Perhaps it was both. Either way, I saw no sign of him, nor would I for some time.

As dawn spilled over me, for a moment, I thought of going back to the Golden Temple to pray. But I had no knowledge of the way back, and I feared too greatly to stumble back into the valley of death. When the dawn light picked out what was lying in the grass, I was near sick before my senses returned to me and I realized that what I saw was not bones and bodies, but only broken weapons. Shattered swords and snapped bows lay all about, so many that it was a miracle I had not lost a foot to one during my flight the night before.

Every one was on the same side of the line of boulders, the side I had come from. On the other side, the fields were so placid that it was as if there was no war at all. It was as if climbing over the rocks had brought me into another world.

The fields sloped steeply downhill, so steeply that I could clearly see the cramped mess of a city by the sea at the bottom. Also visible to me were the group of soldiers marching between the farm fields, headed intently upwards.

I was seized by fear. I had Rock and Kenya, of course, but no Fang. I had seen Kenya fight before, and now she was so much bigger, her ferocious beak so much longer, and yet I was still afraid. I scrambled over the stones again and began searching through the weapons scattered on the ground until I found a naginata. The blade was undamaged, the shaft snapped in half, making it closer to my height, like the training staves that young Sisters used at the Silver Temple. I had never excelled at their training, but it felt better to be armed. 

I ran along the wall, nervously checking the progress of the soldiers every few steps, until I could approach a building. I skipped over the small hut, aiming for the larger structure nearby which I hoped to be a store-house for crops and thus, hopefully, empty. I should have taken the door being wide open to be a warning. Not only was it occupied, but the farmer was waking and milking the largest herd of Miltank I had ever seen. None of them took notice of me and these were surely fat, lazy milkmaids rather than a protective nurse, but nevertheless I fled immediately, my terror and panic only rising. 

The soldiers grew too close and I had nowhere to hide. At the time I could not know how they had known so quickly that a traveller had crossed their borders, though later, of course, I understood that they must have known the minute I crossed the stones. Whatever they had expected, it was not a child, shivering with cold and fear, clutching a broken naginata and a strange Pokemon, an angrily screeching Fearow hovering over the pair of them. When they began muttering to each other, my stomach only dropped further to realize that I did not know their language. In desperation, I turned to the language of the war-kings to frantically insist that Rock and Kenya were mine. 

I felt sure that I would be immediately recognized as a fraud and a liar, but then the surprise on their faces turned to fear and before I could understand it, they were on their knees, their leader begging forgiveness for not immediately recognizing one who was clearly the displaced child of a war-king. 

Before I quite knew what to make of it, they had summoned a palanquin and were carrying me away. 

 

~~~~

 

I spent much of the journey to Asagi trying to decide if I had in fact died, passed through Hell and begun a journey elsewhere, or else suffering a delirious dream. To me, the only true things were Kenya and Rock, and not often. Rock’s happy babbling sounded so much like a baby that I often lapsed into a doze where I imagined that I was holding my sister, and it was infrequently that I could see Kenya flying overhead through the gaps in the palanquin’s curtains. 

The occasional villages visible among the fields gave way abruptly to city streets. My stupor began to lift then and I began to fear again. At any moment, I was sure that I would be discovered. I thought that when we were called on by other guards, I would be revealed, but I was not. I thought that when the palaquin’s curtains were opened, I would be shown as a fraud, but I was not. I was addressed as a lady of noble birth and welcomed to Fort Asagi, and maids were summoned to help me wash and dress, and I felt sure one of them would notice what I really was and throw me out, but not one did. They fussed over me, scrubbed my skin and washed my hair and even gently bathed Rock, cooing in delight as he giggled at them. 

The maids murmured to each other sometimes in their own tongue, sending jolts of fear through me, but for the most part they worked so quietly that it was almost as unnerving. None would meet my eyes, ducking their heads when I looked their way. Only the head maid spoke directly to me, addressing me in the War-Kings’ speech, only to ask me to move an arm or leg to be cleaned or asking if it was safe for Kenya to be groomed. I had no idea, as I certainly had never groomed her, but I agreed and stroked her beak just to be sure that she would remain calm while a maid brushed dirt and leaves from her feathers. I spoke as little as I dared, nodding or shaking my head as I could, and I tried to keep both Rock and Kenya in my line of sight at all times. 

Perhaps in an attempt to encourage me to speak, or perhaps out of boredom since she was not doing any work herself except ordering the other maids around, the head maid talked constantly. She cooed at how adorable Rock was, sighed as she imagined what hardships I must have had to suffer, hardships a young lady of my birth was not fit for. I did not correct her on anything. The deeper I got into the lie, the more dangerous it would be to be discovered, and so I felt no choice but to go deeper. But the head maid mistook my fear for a demure attitude, complimenting me on my quiet manners, and I was cleaned and decorated like a doll with none of the maids any the wiser. 

Oh, such clothes. I had seen such clothes in Kogane, but never dreamt of how soft they were to wear. They were, I know, lighter and less fine than the impossible decadence of Kogane’s Inner City, but were so much finer than anything that I had ever heretofore worn that I could not imagine a difference. I am sure I was given no more than four or five layers, though it felt like a hundred. I thought I might drown under all the silken threads. My head felt odd and heavy with my hair piled high atop it and with so many decorations crammed into it. I had to hold my head carefully, afraid that things would fall. 

When I later told this fear to Lady Mikan, she laughed and laughed and laughed. She said that when she first saw me, I looked as if I was holding my head as high and proud as any War-King.

 

~~~~

 

When I was first presented to Lady Mikan, I could not imagine that we would ever be friends. Her fort on the cliffs of Asagi was not so opulent as anything in the Inner City, but it was all clearly rich beyond any of the farmers in the fields outside of the city. Her court was small. There would have been less than a dozen people in the room, though their curious stares as they assessed me made them feel like a crowd. I could hear them whispering, trying to figure out whose child I was, what Rock was in my arms, what to make of Kenya. Clearly, to their eyes, she was a fearsome warbird, loyal guardian of a War-king’s child. But whose, they could not guess.

Lady Mikan greeted me kindly, gesturing to me to sit directly in front of her. She took one of my hands in both of hers and looked directly into my eyes as she promised me that I was now safe from all hardships. She promised to return me to my clan and asked my name and, because lying had become a second nature, I cast about for a false name and settled upon Rino. She pressed me for my clan, and this was a lie I was unpracticed in. I panicked and said the first noble name which came to mind, which was Utsugi, from whose garden I’d first stolen Fang, and whose name I heard my father complain of often when the harvest came and tax had to be paid. Hardly a noble, of course, for looking back I know he was simply a farmer who was a little better-off than all of the others in the area, but at least I did not falsely place myself in a true War-king’s family. Lady Mikan commented that she had never heard of such a clan, and I said that we were from the south-east but had been wiped out in the wars and I had lost my father, mother and sister. Not a word of this, at least, was a lie. I have often found that the best lies are barely a lie at all, only the truth told a little differently, or the mistakes of others gone uncorrected. This lie was accepted with many sympathetic murmurs. 

Then Lady Mikan promised me that I could stay with her for as long as I desired, and that she would be delighted to care for me, her husband having died without leaving her a living child. She then declared that she would like to walk the garden with me, and me alone, leaving her courtiers behind. 

The garden was small but immaculate. There were trees all around the edges of the garden, hiding the walls of the castle and creating the illusion of being in the depths of a forest. Each one was golden-leaved, and servants who were sweeping fallen leaves from the grass bowed and left when they saw us. All was still and quiet save for the running of water, a false river flowing into a curving pond.

Lady Mikan sat down at the middle of the pond’s curve. I can still see it now when I close my eyes, that serene place where we went so often, and where she sat, perfectly poised, the water around her on three sides, full of elegantly fluttering Goldeen who kissed at her fingers when she dipped them in the water. 

The invited me to sit next to her, and advised me that I should also dip my hands in the water, for my palms became sweaty when I lied.

 

~~~~

 

One of my many lessons with lady Mikan was about liars. There were many tells that she taught me of that could be seen if only you paid close attention, though she then scoffed that it was so rare for anybody to pay attention that it was hardly to be worried about. Paying attention alone was a skill she praised as responsible for her holding her court for so long after her husband’s death, telling her which officials were ambitious and which would choose her over the chaos of a power struggle. The trick is to watch how a person’s eyes move, how they sweat, and the beat of their heart. It can be seen in their neck, if visible, but can also be felt in the palms of their hands.

When at last I was found out, when Lady Mikan called me the liar that I was, I stumbled in my first attempt to run, my feet confused by the many layers of my clothing. Lady Mikan moved as gracefully as if her legs were free as she put a gentle but strong hand on my arm, assuring me that she had been genuine when she promised to care for me and protect me from misfortune. I could not understand, in that moment, why she should care for me once she knew me to be false. This was because, despite my disdain for the wealthy of Kogane, I had not escaped a thought that all War-kings plant in their subjects, and cultivate with all the care a farmer gives his crop. The thought is this, that War-kings and their ilk are so unlike the common folk that one cannot be mistaken for the other, that they are more than mere humans like the rest of us. To expose my lies would risk exposing that greater lie. 

Besides, she had found me to be a curious creature, and took great interest in myself and my strange Pokemon. She confessed at that time to feeling a great fondness for Pokemon, though she gave no hint then of her true affinity with them. When she pressed my hand between hers again, her palms were cool and dry. 

It was in this way that I once again found myself a benefactor with an interest in my Pokemon, my stories and my lies, but she could not have been more different from the Storyteller if she had indeed been of a different species after all.

 

~~~~

 

Though I understood the War-kings’ tongue well enough, I said little to anyone in Fort Asagi but Lady Mikan. This was received as a sign of having a shy or demure disposition by those who found me sympathetic, and of being aloof by those who did not. In truth, I was simply lost and confused for much of my time there, especially in those first days and weeks.

Food, by the rich, was eaten often and in very particular ways, and tea was even more frequent and specific. It was as well that the customs of the court dictated that none of Lady Mikan’s courtiers were considered high enough in rank to eat most meals with her, giving me a chance to learn unobserved. I could not admit to not knowing what many things were or how to eat them with maids fluttering around us, bringing plates and pouring drinks, but as custom also dictated that Lady Mikan always eat first, I would simply mimic her at every meal. The head maid, at least, did notice this, but she found it charming. I cannot say how much she was taken with me and how much she was simply taken with the prospect of there being any child at all about the fort, for she was a motherly sort who, when believing herself unobserved by her uppers, fussed and doted on the maids as if they were all her daughters.

I found much of the food unpleasant, the flavours strong and the textures strange, but it was food and I do not believe that food should ever be passed up. The tea was worse, either so mild that I could barely taste it or so bitter that I could barely drink it. I preferred watching Lady Mikan make it to actually drinking it, as she always seemed so calm when following through the precise actions, as if sleeping while awake. She patiently attempted to teach me many times, but she so often spoke of relying on scents and flavours that I simply had no aptitude for. 

I better understood and took to her meticulous care of her gardens, though in truth she largely gave instructions to her garden servants daily and rarely took any action herself. In any case there was less to care for as winter fell, and with it the snow. We spent more and more time inside, buried in heaps of heavy blankets and furs, gathered around a fire. Lady Mikan referred to these times as my lessons, though I doubt any of her courtiers could have correctly guessed what it was that she taught me.

The exchange seemed so much like what I had had with the Storyteller by the beginning of summer, yet now Lady Mikan wished for me to tell her stories, and in exchange she would tell me of noble life. So many useless things I had to learn in order to pass as one of them! So much time bathing and combing and dressing my hair and changing my clothes for the time of day and then bathing again! I began to fear that I would dissolve and become water myself. My hands and feet grew so soft that I once cut my finger with nothing but paper. 

Kenya grew lazy and even a little fat, roosting on the warm roof over the kitchens at night and sitting in the gardens during the day, or on an ornamental rock that could be seen from Lady Mikan’s front room where she taught me. Sometimes, before the snow fell, I would go to meet Lady Mikan to walk in the garden and she would be stroking Kenya’s beak or feathers and murmuring to her. She would talk to Rock as if he were a baby, and to my great surprise he was content for her to hold him, though at night he would sleep only in my arms.

For a War-king, Lady Mikan took a great deal of interest in the rest of us. Every few days, even after the snow, we would take a palanquin and to go a farm-village, or around the city, and one of Lady Mikan’s courtiers would speak to the people in the rough local tongue and then translate for us what was most needed by the people. When I first asked Lady Mikan how she came to care so much for her people, she commented that happy people were loyal, which was important because there were so many more of them than there were of her. She was ever a surprise, and I could not decide for the longest time whether or not I liked her. 

 

~~~~

 

One night, before the chill rains had fully turned to snow, I was awoken when the moon was still high. I was awoken not by a maid but by Lady Mikan herself, though I did not recognize her at first. I had never seen her in so few clothes, nothing but a rough shirt and pants alike to a servant’s, her hair tied up in a cloth and her chin dirty with the smuts from a fire. She asked if I would like to go for a night walk and gave me commoner’s clothes to wear. I was even more confused at that hour than I was in daytime, and did as I was bid without thinking on it. I put up some protest when she told me to leave Rock to sleep, but she reminded me that he was safe as could be and it would be a shame to wake him, sleeping so contentedly.

She led me back to her chambers, and then into her sleeping-room, where I had never been. She showed me how some parts of the floor could be moved, and beneath it was a tunnel, deep and dark. I was afraid of that darkness, wishing I had not bowed to her insistence on leaving Rock in the room, wishing to seek out Kenya, but she took my hand and told me not to fear. I closed my eyes and let her lead me by the hand. I knew there was so much that I did not know of her, and yet, I had already come to trust her enough to do so.

I did not open my eyes for the entire journey, too afraid to see eyes watching me from the darkness, knowing only the stone beneath my feet. When I heard groaning, my mind painted the darkness with terrible beasts, but Lady Mikan squeezed my hand and assured me that I was safe, that groaning was simply something that the tunnels did. After a time I began to think that I had simply misheard the crashing of waves, which grew steadily louder, until the rough rock gave way to something soft and gritty and Lady Mikan told me to open my eyes.

It was so dark that I barely saw a difference at first, until my eyes began to pick out the lights of stars. The pale colour of the sand picked up the light well, though I did not understand it at first. I had never seen nor walked on sand before, and despite finally wearing practical clothing again, I stumbled many times attempting to follow Lady Mikan along the beach as the sand continually slipped and slid under my feet. 

I thought that, so late, all would be asleep, but as we grew closer to the harbour where many ships were docked, I could see houses close to the water that were still full of light and sound. Lady Mikan said that we would go inside and eat a meal, and that because I did not speak the language I was not to speak at all, only to listen. 

 

~~~~

 

Once inside, I saw that our clothes were alike to those of the many men inside, and indeed that we were disguised as a man and boy, though our colours were not quite the same as anybody else’s. There were a great many men, clustered together and speaking or singing loudly in many different languages. Many were red-faced and wild, sloppily drinking from stinking mugs, and I realized that this was a drinking house. I had never been to such a place before. In Kogane, I had known of them, but other children had warned me to stay away, for they were all run by gangs, and that there were fights and depraved behaviour. What depraved behaviour might be had never been explained to me, though I eventually deduced that it referred to women such as the ones I had lived with in Kogane, who had sometimes waited by the inn to bring drunks back. Inside, I did see the occasional woman who tied her clothes in the front, but I never saw any fights. The men at this house simply appeared to be having fun, and the songs were quite enjoyable, if badly sung.

Lady Mikan went to a table that was close to the wall and gave some small coins to the man behind it in exchange for food. I was surprised to hear her speak in the rough local tongue, which she always had a courtier translate for her when we travelled in the day. She gave me a hot bowl of stew and steered me around the room.

At one point, I was startled to hear my own language, or something alike enough to it that I could understand. Perhaps I gasped, or slowed my step, because a moment later, Lady Mikan pushed me into a seat nearby and started to eat. The stew was the kind of thick, heavy food that I had grown up on, and I was sure it would upset the stomach of anybody used to the delicate food of the rich, yet Lady Mikan ate it happily. I followed suit, my ears attuned to the sailors nearby, fascinated to hear my native language again after so long without it.

The sailors complained of the cold sea, the treacherous waves, the monstrous Pokemon that lurked in the depths, the pirates whole stole ships and slaughtered the men aboard for their cargo. The drunken gossip flowed thick and fast of what was happening in the wars, what rumours they’d heard, what refugees they had seen, battles they’d seen raging as they sailed past coasts. It did not take long to grasp why Lady Mikan had brought me along. It was, after all, but an odd version of what the Storyteller had asked of me in Kogane.

Lady Mikan did not speak to me again until we had returned to the tunnel by the beach. Of course, our only language in common at that time was the War-kings’, and to speak such a thing in the drinking house would have drawn unwanted attention. She was good at learning other languages and had been listening to another conversation, but she was delighted that I knew a language that she did not. She took my hand and led me back through the tunnels, peppering me with questions and comparing my answers to gossip that she had heard in other tongues the whole way.

 

~~~~

 

The more night walks we took, the more Lady Mikan would tell me of her own life. It was a way to keep me calm and distracted during the long walk through the groaning tunnels, and at last I began to understand her.

She had a secret as great as mine, that she had been born no better than anyone else and had worked as a maid in Fort Asagi, where she, being uncommonly beautiful, had caught the eye of the young lord. His parents had died together of a winter sickness when he was young and had been ruling on his own for some years, and had overridden the protestations of his court that marrying a maid was beneath him. As she was also uncommonly clever, in hardly any time at all she had made herself indistinguishable from any War-king’s daughter, and the courtiers began to claim that she was the survivor of a deposed clan, replacing servants and insisting repeatedly on this story until it was believed and all forgot she had once been a servant. Of course, this was much like the story she had fabricated for me.

Then one day, her husband, a fine sailor as well as a lord and of course a War-King above all, had led his fleet to destroy the pirates who were continually raiding around their shores. The pirate fleet was close to destroyed, but so were some of the Asagi ships, and the lord’s body washed ashore a day later.

At the time, knowing that many of her husband’s courtiers still resented her, Lady Mikan claimed falsely that she was with child, carrying the true heir to the clan. This lie bought her time, though she would only vaguely allude to what she did with it. I gathered threads of gossip and rumour over months that wove a picture of a particularly hostile general who would have led a coup was removed from the picture, various court officials leaving court through various means, and I believe that she was not best proud of what she had to do to remove such threats to her life. She did, however, mention that she began her daytrips that made her increasingly beloved of the common people in this time, and that her tunnel was also dug then, to escape if her efforts to secure her own position failed, though she never revealed how it was that she dug such a vast, long tunnel without any other knowing of it. She laughed when she recalled her courtiers’ shock and fear when she always seemed to know if they lied to her about events in the city or even the villages in the farthest reaches of her land, despite being able to find no spies reporting to her. I asked if she had made use of children such as I before, and she said that she had not. 

She could, of course, have been lying, but even if she was aware of how I could feel her heartbeat in her hands, I am not sure that such a thing can be easily controlled. It more often seemed that she would simply avoid such questions as she did not wish to answer than to lie about them. But then, there was much that I did not tell her, either. I kept the secrets of the Golden and Silver temples close to me, no matter what, and I never told her of Fang.

 

~~~~

 

To be a sailor is a useful thing, if not one I would recommend, due to the tempestuous nature of the sea. To travel to so many disparate places and hear so many different tongues can be no bad thing, and whenever in the company of sailors, I have often heard them slip in and out of different languages in conversation as easily as you might slip your feet in and out of sandals. The same topics will always be retread often, chief among them the weather, which for sailors is not a warning sign of a polite conversation going nowhere but a matter of life and death. The first words I learned of the language of Asagi and the islands were for wind, and rain, and different kinds of waves, and the phases of the moon. At the time, I could have conversed on the conditions of the sea in five or six languages, though of several of those tongues I never heard any more after. 

They spoke also of the war, and it was these rumours which were of most interest to myself and Lady Mikan. The gossip of sailors was rife with that which messengers either failed to notice or thought it unseemly to report. They spoke of which clans left villages standing and which left trails of blood, which were trading for what supplies in the ports and which had burned port towns down, which soldiers had abandoned their masters to join others and which had simply fled the battlefield as cowards. They spoke of such things in the kingdoms both east and west of the mountains, and it was then that I first heard the name Sakaki, the clan who had dominated all to the east and now had their eyes on the rich cities by the ocean. 

Of course, at the time I thought nothing of it, or at least nothing connected to myself, not even when I heard talk that the only son had been slain, leaving a daughter as the clan’s sole heir. Why should I have thought anything of it? War-kings and their children died, just as commoners did, if less often and yet with more fanfare. I dutifully reported this news when I first heard of it to Lady Mikan and thought on it no more. If any part of the news concerned me, it were the conflicting rumours about the daughter’s age and yet the consistent reports of her savagery in combat, and only that because it relieved me that this distant girl was not in the same position as the tiny Lady Akane. On reflection, her brutality and the many deaths implied ought to have concerned me more, but I was still a child and thought little on the implications of things. That Lady Akane’s youth and weak position at the head of her clan were common knowledge was of much greater upset to me. 

I began to be invited to join Lady Mikan’s daily meetings with her advisors, and failed to truly think on that, either. After hearing of Lady Mikan’s own humble beginnings and seeing how she commanded her court, I began to grow more confident in my own performance as a young lady born to command others. Sometimes I wish to reach back and give myself a chastising slap for the way I began to speak to servants over that winter, but I do not believe I ever slid from demanding to cruel, and it all simply served to cement my appearance as a surrogate daughter to Lady Mikan. 

She did not call on me to visit the docks every night,and when she did not I would often rouse anyway and took to creeping about beneath the floorboards, listening to what was going on in the fort in the latest night and earliest morning. I did this to feel comforted, mostly, that I could make my own way in and out if I wished, without Lady Mikan holding my hand. Most interesting were the floors beneath the servants’ quarters where maids complained about young men who were courting them, or weren’t courting them, or shopkeepers who charged too much, or the ever-deepening cold. I heard three maids at first sharing a spat over the same young man from the fish-market, and I heard the night they reconciled on discovering he had a fourth, younger girl, their words turning to revenge. I heard many secret whispers and trysts between two maids who were lovers, terrified of being thrown out for their indiscretion but too in love to stay apart. I heard one maid confide in her older sister of having failed to escape a little too much courting some weeks back, and the next night, how her sister murmured soothing words as she sobbed through the pain of a tea that brought an end to the results.I heard many things that these servants were terrified of their masters learning, and I spoke none of it to Lady Mikan, for though she had once been a maid herself she now had a reputation and manner to maintain. One night I heard the maids discussing whether or not they liked me, and I was more surprised than I can say to hear some weep in sadness for the child that Lady Mikan had lost, though I alone knew that child to have been a lie. Some expressed sadness, too, for her dead husband, though not a one of them had ever served him. I was shocked to hear such depth of genuine sorrow for those whose luxury they sacrificed their days to serve. Then again, I suppose it would be easier to learn to love your lord when you live in the warmth and safety of their home, with a full belly every night.

They were by and large in favour of me, though few took any notice of my character and more were concerned with what I represented. Some were delighted that Lady Mikan finally had a child to replace her lost one, while others were relieved that there might at last be a secure line of succession, as Lady Mikan had never remarried. Unlike Lady Akane, overburdened with scheming relatives, Lord Asagi had been the last of his line, so there were no true challengers to Lady Mikan’s rule.

I cannot imagine the life I might have lived there as Lady Mikan’s heir. That life is another ghost, though perhaps one already dead by now.

 

~~~~

 

One night, as the tunnels groaned, Lady Mikan stopped of a sudden. She asked strange questions, questions I could not answer, but she shushed me when I attempted to make some reply. She hurried us back to the fort, ordered me to change back into my sleeping-clothes and return to bed as if nothing had happened, and rushed back to her own chambers. I had scarce managed to lay my head on my pillow when there came a terrible screaming from Lady Mikan’s room. I near collided with the maids when I rushed there, where we found Lady Mikan unharmed, yet demanding guards. She wished for them to make haste to the border, where she claimed to have dreamed of soldiers.

From the murmurs of the maids, I soon gathered that such was a not infrequent event, and of such little concern that some were only frustrated to have been woken. Soldiers were dispatched immediately and without question. Lady Mikan encouraged me to return to sleep, assuring me that all would be well, but I disobeyed her. I did return to my sleeping-chamber, but climbed through the hole that I myself had created by pulling boards from the floor and into the spaces under the halls of the fort, where I determined that Lady Mikan was not returning to sleep either.

I flattened to the floor as she descended into the tunnels under her chambers, still in her sleeping-clothes, then crawled as close to the tunnel mouth as I dared to listen. She spoke as if she commanded soldiers, but there were none there to listen to her except for the darkness and I. That was what I thought at the time.

 

~~~~

 

The only impediment to my standing as a noble lady was my continued frustration with reading. I could never make sense of the characters put before me, and often they seemed to slip and change before my eyes. Even now, I have only faith that this is being transcribed correctly, that you will read my true voice unvarnished by the writer.

I was attempting again to form connections between the words that Lady Mikan was saying and the paper before me when her soldiers returned. They bore several standards and reported that the soldiers that Lady Mikan had forseen had all been slain. I was startled to recognize the standards, but was shy to speak of them to any but Lady Mikan. When at last we were alone again, I had to admit that I did not know the name of the clan, only that I knew of a member whose war-Pokemon I had stolen. Lady Mikan found this truly hilarious, though was disappointed that neither Kenya nor Rock was the stolen Pokemon. She did, however, delight in the stories of their acquisition. There was a great deal of time more for stories the deeper we fell into winter, grey snow and choppy seas freezing the sailors to their ports.

What a strange winter it was, so opposite to the year before when I had desperately clung to the unborn Rock for heat. Now Rock and I both would spend the days by a fire with Lady Mikan, wrapped in heavy clothes and fur blankets, while she patiently taught me of such things that can only be thought of when a person has time and thoughts to spare. I learned to sing quite well, more than the clapping chants of my childhood, though it amused Lady Mikan to learn one or two of those. My aptitude for changing my voice served me quite well when it came to songs. I could even achieve some poetry after a time, if not write it down. I was not particularly enthused to study those things that seemed useless to me until I saw the shock and discomfort on the faces of those courtiers who thought me simpleminded when I recited for them, at which point I resolved to learn more than all of them. I cannot say for sure if I did, though I never heard any of them compose poetry.

Our journeys to the ale-houses grew more infrequent, as with the sailors wintering in port, there was little new gossip to hear and a higher chance that an unfamiliar man and boy would be noticed. I spent more nights crawling beneath the floors, and began to climb about the roofs too. At first it was merely to visit Kenya, but soon I began to delight in the new world of strange pathways and hidden spaces that were under the stars rather than in the dark, and of the views of the city, where I could even see the beach where Lady Mikan and I walked. I did not look often at the sea, my mind filled with the stories the sailors told of monsters beneath the waves. 

Then, after the year had turned and winter was past its deepest, when thoughts began to turn hopefully to the spring on the horizon, Lady Mikan fell ill.

 

~~~~

 

It was so sudden. She bid me goodnight, and we retired to our rooms, she looking as hale as ever. Then, in the morning, I was roused late, and when I asked if I was late for breakfast with lady Mikan, I was told that she was unwell. I refused to eat and pestered the maids until I was permitted to visit, and found her pale and shivering, even as the maids heaped yet more furs on her and stoked the fire by her side.

Day after day, she only grew weaker, unable to accept more than a mouthful of food at a time. Whispers grew, trying to piece together what would happen if she died. I am not sure if I was more afraid of those who proposed me as the heir, or those who opposed it. Lady Mikan had so many secrets, and I knew so little of how she ruled. How could I follow her?

And what would those who opposed me do to me if I tried?

My fear of the unknown future that faced me should Lady Mikan die began to overwhelm all other fears. She might have wasted away slower than my mother, coddled by furs and fires and caring hands, but she was wasting away nonetheless. I had heard of the sailors speaking of a witch living on the islands to the west who could cause or cure any sickness, but how could I reach those islands with the threat of snow ever-present and the wind and waves so cruel that no ship would leave port?

It was a deadly, foolish, dangerous risk, and yet by day it seemed a better prospect than continuing to face Lady Mikan’s courtiers alone. The sailors’ dire mutters sounded in my brain, speaking of the witch, the pirates, the monsters.

At last my fear broke and I took Rock in my arms, wrapped up warm, and took to the tunnels without Lady Mikan’s guiding hand. I found that we had walked together so many times that my feet remembered the way, even as I closed my eyes and buried my face in the soft, floppy crests on Rock’s head. He cooed and giggled at the groaning darkness, and I could feel him waving his tiny arms, though without any warm rush of power through them. I kept my eyes closed even as I walked out onto the beach, where the sand and snow were so, so cold. I could not imagine the temperature of the water, and stopped well before it, sinking to my knees as I began to cry from the cold and despair. I clutched Rock and I wailed like the child I perhaps ought to have still been, not looking up until I heard Rock cheer in delight.

The tears and darkness clouded my eyes at first, making it impossible to see, but I could hear the crunch of heavy feet in the snow, the slither of something dragging behind them, the low, sad growl of something huge that laid down at my feet.

I opened my arms, letting Rock run forward with many happy cries to press the tiniest hug to the monster before us, then wrapped my arms around Fang’s long snout, and sobbed anew.

 

~~~~

 

_ To:MrMort@tintower.fa _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Mr Minaki, _

 

_ I apologize if I have taken some of my frustrations out on you of late--aside from the dreadful state that many sites of historical interest in Kanto have fallen into, I have faced a great deal of (oftentimes violent) resistance from small cults that formed around some of them. It is hardly a crime to wish to preserve and protect somewhere or something of great cultural importance, of course, but to deny others at least some knowledge of the history contained within, to so completely lock away the precious past that has led to all of our presents… it is frustrating, at best. But not all your fault, of course. _

 

_ Interestingly, you are not wrong about Ghost perhaps being a blip on the historical record. The courtiers of Fort Asagi pre-Dragon Empire were prone to fudging family records, as Ghost alludes to, but absolutely meticulous in their bookkeeping. Though not named, there are records of clothing being tailored for a girl of approximately nine years of age, and the items tailored were too fine to be for anything but the daughter of the ruler of the time. Said ruler’s name has been entirely lost, and may well be the Lady Mikan described here. Orders for children’s clothes appear in the records for less than six months, then vanish as mysteriously as they appeared, there being no other record of any items for children for some twenty years preceding this odd little blip. A briefly adopted strange child, who was then forced out of the court in some manner less than a year later, would likely have been removed from the Asagi family registry, if they were ever on it in the first place. _

 

_ No toys or suchlike were purchased at this time, though there was a sharp uptick in purchasing of high-quality paper and ink, which could conceivably be the result of struggling to teach an illiterate child. Ghost’s own story suggests that they never became truly literate and confirms that this is narration to a second party, though whether this second party is the specific person that the scrolls are addressed to is unclear. But it would also account for the early phonetic writing--if there is no written form of their own language, but they were narrating in their native tongue, it would make sense to simply transcribe it phonetically. This also suggests that the writer, whoever it was, was a literate member of the courts of pre-Dragon Empire Johto. This encompasses a range from scribes to the War-Kings themselves, but whoever it was, they have been entrusted with what is a very intimate story, full of very personal feelings and secrets. My best guesses would be either a lover, as this story appears to be told from a perspective of many years later, or perhaps a particularly beloved adopted sibling, if they used the skills they learned in Lady Mikan’s care to blend in among another noble family. Though perhaps they never became literate, I can believe their claim to have grasped oral poetry, given the way that metaphor and other literary devices have been used throughout the story--unless you took it upon yourself to embellish the otherwise bland descriptions of an illiterate peasant! Somehow, I doubt that, however. _

 

_ Ghost’s account does align with being designated female, and if pressed would likely consider it their “true” gender, though of course much understanding of gender was lacking in that time and some of their writings suggest, as you’ve mentioned before, an inclination towards either genderfluidity or agender, had they the understanding and vocabulary for it. We cannot expect historical figures to have a modern understanding of such things, but nor were the spectrums of gender and sexuality simply invented at some developing point of the past! A thing need not have a name to exist, though names do help. _

 

_ I am also curious about the mentions of Clan Sakaki, the clan Kamon was most likely from. Ghost’s commentary on their own recollections suggests that this is the case, though family records of Clan Sakaki are also lacking due to their complete obliteration by the Dragon Clan despite once having dominion over almost all of modern Kanto and a sizeable portion of modern Johto. We do not even know the name of its last Lord or anything of his--or possibly her--children, so great was their loss. Assuming Ghost’s account is authentic, it is entirely possible that they are in fact describing the last years of both Clan Sakaki and of the world prior to the rapid ascension of the Dragon Empire. Fanciful stories aside, the presence of Lady Akane’s uncle is incongruous, as the man reportedly died fighting on Kogane’s borders alongside his son, but of course Ghost could have simply mistaken the identity of the man who once owned Kenya. The historical record could also be inaccurate, the result of guesswork in the aftermath of a string of terrible losses in battle for Kogane. A mistranslation of a familial term is also possible, as I still know nothing about how you translate these. _

 

_ I am… curious about your mention of the writings of Chronos. I have studied them, of course, and previous incidents that may or may not have been predictions “come true”. In this day and age, closing off your private archives based on ancient prophecies is… strange. I shall have to look up my old notes, and perhaps find a copy of the compiled prophecies, as I have not heard anything about one of them supposedly coming true. I would expect something like that to be news, not kept secret. What does the Tin Tower seek to hide, or protect? I do not expect you to answer, of course, merely thinking aloud. _

 

_ I do not use social media myself, but Taeko has shown me some of your pictures. I’ve never been hiking around Ecruteak, but it looks like a beautiful area. It must be a sight to see in fall, when the leaves turn! _

 

_ Sincerely,  _

  1. _Reiton_



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which my Angry Leftieism intensifies again, reminding everybody that the notion of class is an illusion perpetuated by those at the top for their own ends. I feel like this has been a LOT of history nerding and not a whole lot of Pokemon, but that’ll change in the next scroll now that Fang’s back on the scene...
> 
> Goddamn, this is a long one! I found myself REALLY liking Lady Mikan once I started writing her, and I kept spinning fragments out just to explore a little more of her and her world. My mental image of her keeps turning into Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke. 
> 
> I wanted to add the Pride month drabbles before this one because there really wasn’t a way to describe this scenario without mentioning Ghost’s assigned gender, but I still very strongly feel that they’re genderfluid and will continue to refer to them as they/them (as will Morty and Professor Reiton). 
> 
> Pokemon--4  
> Deaths--0
> 
> Name: Fang. Species: Feraligatr.  
> Name: Rock. Species: Togepi.   
> Name: Kenya. Species: Fearow.  
> Name: Moon. Species: Eevee.


	7. Fragments 6a-6f

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fang the Feraligatr, Rock the Togepi, Kenya the Fearow, Moon the Eevee

_ To: ereiton@goldenrodu.edu _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Professor, _

 

_ What little treats are buried in unexpected places in the historical record! It is a pleasure to see that something of Ghost may have survived, if not a name. With how far their story has travelled already, there’s no telling where they may have ended up--though the scrolls were found in a cave in the Indigo Mountains, who knows who brought it there? Was it Ghost themself, hiding away their story for somebody else who never retrieved it? Was it the recipient, storing away the scrolls somewhere safe--or hiding them? _

 

_ I just hope continuing to translate the scrolls will one day reveal the answers. Even if the scrolls weren’t such a unique discovery, I’m too curious about Ghost’s life not to--I can’t blame the Storyteller or Lady Mikan for taking such an interest!  _

 

_ I am also interested in how they may intersect with other mysteries of history, such as the final days of the Sakaki clan, if that is indeed the time period that Ghost is recalling. I’ve been reading about them myself, and noticed some discussion about the rapid domination of the Dragon Empire through Johto not solely being due to their powerful dragons, but due to their timing. The evidence suggests that the clans Akane and Sakaki waged an all-out battle that was so destructive that neither could claim to win, and then the Dragon Clan swept through, taking all. Because of the scale of the destruction, though, I can only find theories about what exactly led to the battle going in such an extreme direction. Do you know who is most credible on this? It might help me guess at how credible Ghost’s own account is, if that’s where we’re going with this! _

 

_ As for Chronos… I do highly recommend reading a compiled copy of his prophecies, and dare to ask yourself… if this  _ did _ come true, what would the implications be? Would the person it came true for truly wish for it to be public knowledge? The holy orders in Ecruteak are, well, holy orders, after all, not corporations. Neither PR nor a profit line are particularly high in anybody’s mind. _

 

_ If you’ve never been to Ecruteak, the fall is the best time to come--the leaves are like nothing you can ever imagine! Pictures simply don’t capture it. _

 

_ Sincerely, _

_ Mortimer Minaki _

  
  
  


~~~~~

 

I cannot find a sensible way to express how I knew that Fang would be on that beach that night. It was always so dark when I had traversed the shore with lady Mikan, and even if I had dared to look out on the freezing waves, how could I have seen him? Could I have heard him cry out over the wind and water? Yet all the same, when I most hoped to see him, there he was.

 

He was a great deal bigger than last I’d seen him, but seemed to move more slowly and with greater care. Perhaps he feared to frighten me away again, but as soon as I laid eyes on him, I knew what I had always known. I knew that he would never harm me. 

 

Even so, I spent some time to teach him the command to stop. I would take a few steps, and then, when he moved to follow, cry it out, over and over, until he froze in place, at which point I would reward him with a hug, though I could not reach my arms fully around any part of his body any more except perhaps the end of his tail. He learned fast, all told, needing less than a dozen of such exercises before he would stop at a moment’s command. It was the first command that I had ever taught him. I had, of course, called on him to attack before, but he had often done so no matter what I said to him.

 

Now, with a monster the likes of which the sailors whispered in fear under my command, I sought to take to the water as fast as possible. The rumours all said that the witch lived on the biggest of the outer islands, the one which could distantly be seen rising from the water. The clouds were too thick to see the moon and the night too dark to see the distant island, but I knew which way was west and knew the way to go. I climbed onto Fang’s back, nestled between the red ridges on his spine, pointed the way, and held on tight as he plunged into the frigid sea.

 

~~~~

 

I awoke surrounded by corpses. This was not the first time I had done so, nor in fact would it be the last, though it was unusual in that the corpses had not been there when I fell asleep. In fact, I could not recall falling asleep at all. I had been aware of clinging tightly to Fang’s back with Rock tucked under my arm as we ploughed through the frigid, stormy seas, and as I recalled this I immediately felt around in a panic for Rock. I was beyond relieved to find him still in my arms, and radiating warmth as he had when I was an egg, which accounted for the front of my clothes being warm and dry though the back and legs were damp and chilly still, despite the warmth all around me. It then came to me that I was warm and sheltered by some soft weight, and this likely accounted for my not having passed in my sleep from the chill. Kenya was sitting on me, roosting as a mother Pokemon did over her egg, protecting me from the cold air and the spray of the sea. She was also eating something that I did not enquire as to the nature of. Fang was curled up not far away. Both of them were splattered with blood, likely from the fresh corpses all about.

 

I ought to have died of the foolishness that drove me to take to a stormy sea at night, in winter. I ought to have died of choosing to travel to the largest island in a sea where I knew that pirates roamed, and must surely have a haunt in which to wait out the winter. I ought to have been another corpse on that beach. I lived through all of these things due to the care of Fang, Rock and Kenya, and what were blessings to me must have been nightmares to the pirates, who could not have known as they went to rest the night before that they would never see the following dawn. Fang and Kenya alone, against more pirates than I dared to count, and not all of them were human, though many of those that were were so muscular and hairy it was hard to tell them apart from the Pokemon they must have commanded. I cannot think how Kenya followed us through the chill rain, but she did, and had energy still to make short work of the strong, murderous fighters awaiting her and Fang on the other side.

 

I did not wish to be around the unpleasant bodies anymore, so I followed the only path available to me, the one which Fang had been sitting and growling at. It was well-trod, and not far into the forest led to wooden palisades. A small handful of survivors stood behind them, bows drawn, and when they saw us, one screamed to fire. Fang leapt, as ever, to my defence, and seemed not to notice the arrow that did manage to stick between two plates in his hide, while the rest clattered off leaving no more than scrapes. Then he lunged.

 

I was as shocked as the pirates when he stopped at my commanded, but I quickly buried my relief and told them that I would let them live if they let us pass and told us what we wished to know. One of the survivors was a mere boy, in truth, only a couple of years older than I when I recall now, though at the time this was sufficient difference to make him seem grown to my child’s eyes. His voice was high and shaking when he asked what I wanted. I can hope that such fear drove him to some more honest trade, far away from the sea and all its monsters, though the land crawls with just as many.

 

I asked if it was true that a witch dwelt on the islands, one who could cure any illness. They told me of one such woman who lived deep in the forests, and warned me that she was capable of great and terrible magic. I, made bold by their fear of Fang and Fang’s obedience to my command, simply set off in the direction I had been given, determined to seek out the witch and save Lady Mikan.

 

~~~~

 

The trees were grey and barren, and I could hear the crash of waves no matter how far into the forest we went. Kenya perched on Fang’s back rather than flying overhead, perhaps fearing, as I did, to be too far from his might. The only sound at all was our footfalls and the sea, with no sound or sign of any wild Pokemon at all, nor any other human. After a time, I began to fear that the pirates had lied to convince us to leave them alive, but I forged onwards regardless, for I was too afraid to abandon hope.

 

After a time, Rock awoke suddenly and began to whimper, quickly escalating to flailing and wailing frantically in my arms. I could not account for it. He was not a human infant who regularly soiled their clothes, and radiated such heat that he could not be cold. When hungry he would simply begin to gnaw on the nearest inanimate object, often my clothes, until I fed him, though he seemed capable of digesting whatever he took it into his head to consume. I wondered if perhaps he was frightened of something, but I could see nothing, and even Kenya and Fang seemed confused.

 

Rock, I know now, is singularly sensitive to children, even as an apparent infant himself. He had often grown suddenly upset when we were accosted by bandits, upset not due to recognizing the imminent danger of weapons but due to feeling the ill will towards me. At those times, the source of his upset was readily apparent, so I had never thought on it much.

 

Had I known then what it was that upset, I would have realized that it was not being able to see a threat that upset him, but sensing it, and that he was growing so upset without anything in sight meant that we were drawing closer to a greater ill will than we had ever before encountered.

 

But I could know none of this at the time. I cuddled Rock close, attempting to console him, when I ought to have fled.

 

~~~~

 

When first she spoke to me, her voice sounded so like my mother’s that I began to cry from shock. I am grateful that she did not bear my mother’s appearance, however, simply appearing to be a very nondescript adult woman in old, worn clothes. She walked with her hands on the trees around her, reaching out as she knelt carefully before me and commented on what an odd cry the baby had. It was then that she was close enough for me to see her pale, completely colourless eyes and realize that she was blind.

 

I told her that Rock was not a baby, but a young Pokemon, and that he was upset by something. She reached a hand in Rock’s direction, but he smacked it away with surprising strength, suddenly placing himself between the stranger and I. Before my eyes I saw his head reach out from his shell at the end of a long neck, his stubby arms and feet elongating, and tiny, buzzing wings appearing from his back, holding him up in the air between us. His tears were gone, and in their place was a fierce glare.

 

I could not account for this dislike of the woman, and both Fang and Kenya seemed equally nonplussed, though after a short time Fang seemed to decide that if this woman was somehow upsetting Rock, she was a threat. He advanced with his teeth bared, and I had to command him to stop, warning the woman that my Pokemon somehow disliked her. Then I asked if this was because she was a witch.

 

She did not hesitate to confirm that she was, and said that it was rather unusual for Pokemon to dislike her. She did not seem upset by Rock’s dislike of her, stating that Pokemon were wise and that she liked them rather more than humans.

 

I desperately wanted her help, and told her of Lady Mikan’s illness, asking if it was true that the witch brewed a medicine that could cure any sickness. She assured me that she could, but at a price, and asked what I would pay. I told her that, as Lady Mikan’s ward, I had access to many fine things, gold, food, art, but she was interested in none of these things.

 

She asked me for a promise. She said that she could see in my eyes that I had been cursed with many blessings, and she wanted my word that I would one day pass something on to her. This made no sense to me, and I asked what such a thing meant, but she was dismissive, saying that I did not need to know how or why. She only wished for my word that one day, when she asked for something, I would give it to her, whatever it was.

 

I agreed, for I knew no better at the time. It does not do to make promises which you do not understand the nature of, or to trust blind people who claim they can see things in your eyes.

 

I departed soon after with a bottle of medicine in my hands and the weight of a promise on my shoulders, in the form of a small yellow Pokemon that lived inside of a red rock. The witch had summoned her, naming her Nessie, and told me that the sticky little creature would protect me until it was time for me to pay her back, ignoring my protests that I had protection aplenty. Nevertheless, I took Nessie, and thought that perhaps my luck was turning, for all the way back to Asagi, the waters were still, the skies clear. Kenya and Rock flew overhead in the light of an unusually beautiful winter’s day. How lucky, I thought at the time.

 

~~~~

 

I found Asagi in chaos. On the hills, we could see them, the soldiers marching towards the city, mowing down defensive lines before them. With the seas and skies inexplicably clear, people were swarming aboard the ships floating in the harbour and crowding the beach, now full of fishing boats and the hasty construction of rafts. People screamed and fled at the sight of Fang coming ashore and Kenya and Rock swooping overhead, but I ignored them, leaping from Fang’s back and running up the beach in search of Lady Mikan.

 

I spotted her entourage easily, taking her aboard one of the larger ships. I employed elbows, feet and not a single shred of dignity in my single-minded determination to reach her, holding the bottle of medicine aloft. Some of the maids, I believe, were delighted to see me safe, while some of the courtiers looked perturbed that I had reappeared from wherever it was I had gone. They argued against feeding Lady Mikan whatever medicine was in the mystery bottle, especially when I insisted that I had received it from a witch, and attempted to stop me. I cried out when one pulled me roughly away from Lady Mikan, and then Nessie, the little Pokemon gifted to me by the witch, lashed out with long yellow tentacles, firmly pushing aside anyone in my way. With her protection, I was able to force the bottle between Lady Mikan’s pale lips and pour the medicine down her throat.

 

There was screaming all around now as Fang followed the sound of my shouting, though thankfully he simply pushed his way through the fleeing crowds. He attacked nobody, for nobody there dared attack the great beast that had lurched out of the sea. It was the first time since our reunion I had seen him stand next to a house, and the first time I realized there was no longer any chance of him fitting through a door designed for a human.

 

The only soldiers left in the city were the ones surrounding Lady Mikan, and at the courtiers’ command were the first to turn weapons on Fang, forcing me to stand between them to prevent one from attacking the other. I must confess that I somewhat enjoyed the fear in the eyes of the courtiers who hated me when they realized that I now had the loyalty of four Pokemon, one being bigger and fiercer than the other three combined. The situation grew tenser by the second until Lady Mikan’s voice interrupted it.

 

Weak though it was at first, the shock of hearing her voice for the first time in weeks was enough to still us all. She seemed to come alive before our eyes as she sat up, colour leeching back into her hollow cheeks, light sparkling in her eyes again as she cleared her throat and demanded an explanation of what was happening.

 

When she received it, she ordered the servants carrying her litter to turn around. She had no intention of fleeing, not when the land itself would heed her call and destroy the invaders.

 

~~~~

 

Lady Mikan sent a runner ahead to tell the soldiers to fall back, and ordered her litter-bearers to proceed to the front lines. I followed, riding on Fang’s back as he lumbered alongside the litter-bearers, not half so graceful on land as he was in water, yet no less intimidating to look upon. Lady Mikan’s health and strength returned to her rapidly, and she was delighted to meet Fang and to learn that he had once been a Pokemon small enough for me to carry under my arm as I stole him. 

 

When we approached the enemy forces, Lady Mikan told me not to speak, simply to remain at her side as she ordered the enemy commander to turn and leave. When I asked what would happen if the commander refused, her eyes sparkled as she smiled.

 

I think now she had hoped that the enemy would continue to attack, and that she was excited to finally let me in on her greatest secrets. I was later to learn that she had only before revealed anything to her husband, and even he had not know the extent of what she was capable of. Perhaps she had only judged me odd enough to appreciate her abilities, though later in life I came to wonder if she had simply desired the deepest possible bond with me.

 

Whatever her reasons, upon passing through the retreating soldiers, she ordered her litter-bearers to set her down. She was wearing sickbed clothes, not fine robes, and demanded a retreating soldier give her his armour to cover this up. She declared an intent to speak to the enemy commander with only Fang, Kenya, Nessie, Rock and I at her side. I do not think any who looked on Fang could doubt his ability to protect us, but I also believe that her people, quite simply, had faith in her. They believed that, so long as she seemed assured of her actions, allowing her to do as she willed was the best course of action.

 

So it was that we found ourselves standing in an emptied village, watching the enemy soldiers approach us. Their commander stepped forwards alone, and I was startled to see a girl, older than I yet clearly not a woman grown. Her flaming red hair and angry scowl left no doubt in my mind that she was some kin of Kamon’s, a suspicion confirmed by the appearance of his great green war-Pokemon at her side, now bigger than ever and bearing ragged pink petals around its neck.

 

Lady Mikan commanded that the girl make her apologies for breaking the treaties of peace that guarded Asagi’s borders and leave, before any consequences befell her. The girl responded that she was Miyuu, of Clan Sakaki, and had been sent by her father to claim this land, but now would not leave without revenging herself on the thief who she believed responsible for the death of her brother Kamon.

 

She pointed at me, astride Fang’s back, and demanded my head in exchange for her leaving the rest of Asagi unharmed. Lady Mikan did not take kindly to this demand. With such a furious glare on her face, I was surprised to hear her begin to sing a song, a gentle, lilting melody about the strength of the hills and mountains. As she did, she began to dance, a startling thing in a woman who’d been on her deathbed a bare hour ago. Her heels struck against the ground in precise rhythm, ignoring the jeering calls of Miyuu’s soldiers. Fang roared his defiance at them, and the green war-Pokemon roared back, and then the earth itself roared and shook.

 

Quakes were not common at this time of year, but by no means unknown. The first rumble was light, barely enough forewarning to prompt me to cling tighter to Fang’s back before the second shake flung even him violently to the ground. The soldiers bellowed and screamed in fear and pain as they went tumbling in piles of armour and edged weapons. Lady Mikan continued to sing and dance, seeming to know the quakes before they came, dancing and leaping over the earth as she sang about the ground itself rising to smite those who would stain it with blood.

 

Then I saw the low rock walls that I had crossed over to enter Asagi coming down the hill, like a sea monster through water, as Lady Mikan finally stopped dancing and the earth fell away beneath her feet to reveal more shining steel than I had ever seen in one place on even the worst of battlefields.

 

~~~~

 

Onix are mighty creatures that, by and large, live deep, deep beneath the earth, keeping business of their own far from soft creatures of daylight and water. But upon hearing Lady Mikan’s voice and the pattern of her feet upon the earth, they came at her call, smashing through enemy soldiers as easily as they smashed through the ground before them. Spears and swords and arrows clattered off of their stone hides as if they were nothing at all. Ranks screamed and broke before them, or were crushed to the earth by cascading boulders that moved, connected, like tails. Lady Mikan only smiled, crouching and stroking the steel that had surface beneath her feet, murmuring her thanks for the swift response.

 

Miyuu responded with rage, as did her green war-Pokemon, from whose neck leaves flew like daggers, slicing through the stone. The Onix bellowed in pain, and Lady Mikan gasped in horror as they fell, one after another, somehow torn apart by mere leaves. I could not have imagined to see such creatures of destruction in my life, and even less could I ever have imagined something bringing destruction upon them.

 

The steel beneath Lady Mikan’s feet roared and rose up, bigger than any of the Onix and blatantly engulfed in rage. At the same time, Kenya shrieked and dove, her broad wings knocking the green war-Pokemon back. Fang roared, but I screamed for him to stop, for I knew even then that just as the roots of a plant can indeed crack stone, they devour water. But Kenya was a creature of air, and Rock had become one too, and both of them struck at the green creature while dancing around its vicious leaves, distracting it from further harming the Onix, who at Lady Mikan’s command turned their attention back to destroying the Sakaki troops.

 

Miyuu herself, knocked from her war-Pokemon’s back, laid eyes on me, and when she did so I saw there the deepest hatred I have ever seen before or since. Lady Mikan noticed this too, and asked her dearest friend to deal with this enemy who so threatened her child.

 

The steel monster’s tail slammed down and the green one only barely managed to avoid it, grabbing Miyuu and turning tail to flee the battlefield. Lady Mikan bid her friend, whom she called King Steel, to let her flee, and bring to Sakaki news that the borders of Asagi were defended well.

 

It was then that Lady Mikan introduced me to her friends, the clan of Onix who followed King Steel, and explained to me that they were all dear friends on account of her being able to hear the voice of a Pokemon’s heart and respond in kind. This was who she had spoken to in the tunnels, and though I had heard only the groaning of stone, she had heard language that she understood as clearly as her own.

 

When I asked if she could teach me this language, pointing out my own proficiency, she laughed and laughed and laughed.

 

~~~~~

  
  


_ To:MrMort@tintower.fa _

_ Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Knife Ridge Scrolls _

 

_ Dear Mr. Minaki, _

 

_ It would be a blessing if Ghost’s account could shed some light on the cataclysmic final conflict between the armies of Akane and Sakaki, though their tale is swerving somewhat into the fantastical again! Nothing here is historically implausible--the witch, for example, is clearly an ancient psychic who used her powers to overcome her blindness to a degree and build up a reputation of fear to protect herself from the many pirates roaming the region. The Gab was also by no means created by the Psychic Event that hit the Fairlands twenty years ago, but it occurrence in humans outside of the area of affect and throughout history has been somewhat below one in a million. It is entirely possible that Lady Mikan could speak to Pokemon, and this certainly fits neatly into the number of earthquakes that struck her political and military rivals at opportune times, enough to make many believe she had some form of divine protection! There are no records referring to her as being able to speak to Pokemon, but it would make sense for her to keep such an apparently (to her) unique ability secret. I have looked up samplings of her poetry that have been recovered, and they are preoccupied with earth, stone and mountains, fitting to one with a close relationship to Johto’s King Under The Ground of the time.  _

 

_ Nothing is impossible, yet nothing is proven, either. Ghost certainly has a predisposition to travel and find themself in the company of remarkable people! Were the time period appropriate, I would be expecting them to visit with Chronos himself. _

 

_ Speaking of, I have been rereading an annotated compilation of his prophecies, including suggestions of events that different ones may have referred to. Chronos was undoubtedly a psychic, and quite a powerful one at that, but telling the future to the level of detail that he--or his singularly dedicated wife, who I understand transcribed and attempted to sort his somewhat disconnected ramblings--described is not something that has been seen before or since! I am not skeptical as to his powers, though I fear some embellishment may have been involved at describing what he saw, or simple misunderstanding of future technological achievements of which he could have known nothing. Seeing Ho-oh itself breathing life into fossils, for example, may have been confusion over seeing DNA extraction technology being used to replicate extinct Pokemon whose fossils were known and speculated on in Chronos’ time. The centuries of arguments and speculation about interpreting Chronos’ prophecies make for just as interesting reading as the prophecies themselves! _

 

_ Miyuu and Kamon of Clan Sakaki are both names unknown to history, but we’ve already discussed the scarcity of records regarding the last years of Clan Sakaki. Even if they were not destroyed, certain of the more militaristic clans kept no record of children until they came of age, for it was only then that they were valued by the clan, and it is only through other, more meticulous clans that we know what the rates of infant mortality to problems such as plague and starvation were. Kamon may not have come of age when he was, as it appears, killed by Fang, or else as heir to the clan would not have been recorded until he succeeded his father--and Miyuu, similarly, must not have come of age or succeeded their father yet. That she is described riding Kamon’s war-Pokemon suggests that he gave her the fully-trained war-Pokemon as a gift prior to going to the Golden Temple, perhaps a show of care for her safety. Either that, or he gave her the Pokemon to care for while he went to pray, showing a regard for the sanctity of the Golden Temple that’s interestingly at odds with the lack of respect Sakaki showed for Asagi’s boundaries. Then again, Miyuu is not her brother and is driven by her own admission by the desire for revenge on his killer. And the description suggests, to my mind, a Meganium, meaning she could indeed have killed Fang and the Onix that Lady Mikan summoned!  _

 

_ War-Pokemon were quite an investment in wars of old--though they took time and dedication to train, once they became powerful enough, a single war-Pokemon could cut massive swathes of destruction through a battlefield. Fang is described here as having grown thickly armoured enough to repel arrows, and the Meganium’s leaves are sharp enough to slice through stone with ease. The loss of one could be devastating to an army’s prospects, but a sufficiently trained one could be worth hundreds of human soldiers. The Dragon Clan, at its height, fielded an army where the number of dragons massively outnumbered the humans who commanded them, which is what made them nigh-unstoppable--until the reclusive Sinnans of the far north began to field their rare and powerful ice Pokemon, wiping out dragons in their dozens and striking off the fall of the Empire.  _

 

_ Anyway, all of this is far past Ghost’s time, but the rise and fall of the Dragon Empire has always been fascinating because of how heavily dependant it was on the simplest of tournament tactics--type matching! It isn’t something that Ghost has encountered due to how little they’ve been seen to fight against other Pokemon, but in this scroll we read of Kenya, a flying-type, being instrumental in defeating what sounds like a number of fighting-type Pokemon trained by the pirates, and driving off Miyuu’s Meganium. Homogeneity was the fatal flaw of the Dragon Empire, which I’m sure is as interesting philosophically as it is historically.  _

 

_ I’ve rambled too long myself on topics unrelated to this scroll, I fear. I am curious to hear more about Lady Mikan’s campaign eastward--there are records of supplies being purchased for a brief military excursion, both the intent and outcome of which are not recorded. First-hand accounts of war Pokemon at work are not common and always valuable, so I am anticipating your next translation eagerly! _

 

_ Sincerely, _

_ E. Reiton _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand we’re back with more wild history, including Rock FINALLY evolving and getting the Cianwood Shuckle--I know she’s called Shuckie in the English version of the game but I found out she’s called Nessie in the Japanese version and I enjoy that a lot so Nessie it is here. This Scroll kinda covers both the Chuck and Jasmine gym battles--Kenya did almost solo Chuck’s gym, wth Fang having to jump in to finish the Poliwrath, and Fang actually pretty much solo’d Jasmine’s gym. I got EXTREMELY lucky with him outspeeding and overpowering the two Magnemites, and then he dealt with the Steelix pretty well. A Pokemon known as The King Under The Ground and referring to the ability to speak to Pokemon as The Gab are both things very much from my main series of fics, but I hope their meaning is clear enough without having to read those!
> 
> Ingame I did actually still have Moon with me the whole time, but since I was gunning for Espeon or Umbreon he still hadn’t evolved yet at this point and really wasn’t doing much.
> 
> Anyway, happy new year! Hope you all had a good holiday season! I took my first trip home in two years, which was a lovely rest that I really needed and it was great to see folks again. Hope 2019 is good to you all!
> 
> Pokemon--5  
> Deaths--0
> 
> Name: Fang. Species: Feraligatr  
> Name: Rock. Species: Togetic  
> Name: Kenya. Species: Fearow  
> Name: Moon. Species: Eevee  
> Name: Nessie. Species: Shuckle

**Author's Note:**

> Pokemon--2  
> Deaths--0
> 
> Name: Fang. Species: Croconaw.  
> Name: Rock. Species: Togepi.
> 
> The next month's NaNoWriMo so don't expect a whole lot more soon, but I hope this is as much interest to the history nerds out there :P


End file.
